Abstract
Phospholipases form a ubiquitous class of enzymes optimized to catalyze the hydrolysis of phospholipids. Because their products are often second messengers, they are highly regulated by the cell. For a given ester bond, there are separate secreted as well as cytoplasmic phospholipases with different substrate specificities and modes of regulation. As it becomes available, structural information provides a view of interfacial catalysis for several of these phospholipases on a molecular level. Recent structural advances include solution structures of a pancreatic phospholipase A2 in the absence and presence of a micellar interface, crystal structures of a bacterial phosphatidylinositol-phospholipase C whose active site is reminiscent of ribonuclease, and a Ca2+ lipid binding domain with high homology to regions in several cytoplasmic phospholipases that can model the way those proteins interact with the membrane surface. Phospholipases also have a wide and complex array of regulatory mechanisms involving cy...

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