Proenkephalin

More reference expression dataBioGPSEnsemblUniProtRefSeq (mRNA)RefSeq (protein)Location (UCSC)Chr 8: 56.44 – 56.45 MbChr 4: 4.13 – 4.14 MbPubMed searchWikidata

Proenkephalin (PENK), formerly known as proenkephalin A (since proenkephalin B was renamed prodynorphin), is an endogenousopioidpolypeptidehormone which, via proteolyiccleavage, produces the enkephalinpeptidesmet-enkephalin, and to a lesser extent, leu-enkephalin. Upon cleavage, each proenkephalin peptide results in the generation of four copies of Met-enkephalin, two extended copies of met-enkephalin, and one copy of leu-enkephalin. Contrarily, Leu-enkephalin is predominantly synthesized from prodynorphin, which produces three copies of it per cleavage, and no copies of Met-enkephalin. Other endogenous opioid peptides produced by proenkephalin include adrenorphin, amidorphin, , , , , , and .

The following table lists the peptides that are derived from cleavage of the proenkephalin protein.