biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

, a phosphatase is an

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...

that uses water to cleave a phosphoric acid monoester into a

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phosph ...

ion and an alcohol. Because a phosphatase enzyme catalyzes the

hydrolysis Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile. Biological hydrolysi ...

of its substrate, it is a subcategory of hydrolases. Phosphatase enzymes are essential to many biological functions, because

phosphorylation In chemistry, phosphorylation is the attachment of a phosphate group to a molecule or an ion. This process and its inverse, dephosphorylation, are common in biology and could be driven by natural selection. Text was copied from this source, wh ...

(e.g. by

protein kinases A protein kinase is a kinase which selectively modifies other proteins by covalently adding phosphates to them (phosphorylation) as opposed to kinases which modify lipids, carbohydrates, or other molecules. Phosphorylation usually results in a fu ...

) and dephosphorylation (by phosphatases) serve diverse roles in cellular regulation and signaling. Whereas phosphatases remove phosphate groups from molecules,

kinase In biochemistry, a kinase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of phosphate groups from high-energy, phosphate-donating molecules to specific substrates. This process is known as phosphorylation, where the high-energy ATP molecule don ...

s catalyze the transfer of phosphate groups to molecules from ATP. Together, kinases and phosphatases direct a form of

post-translational modification Post-translational modification (PTM) is the covalent and generally enzymatic modification of proteins following protein biosynthesis. This process occurs in the endoplasmic reticulum and the golgi apparatus. Proteins are synthesized by ribo ...

that is essential to the cell's regulatory network. Phosphatase enzymes are not to be confused with phosphorylase enzymes, which catalyze the transfer of a phosphate group from hydrogen phosphate to an acceptor. Due to their prevalence in cellular regulation, phosphatases are an area of interest for pharmaceutical research.

Biochemistry

Phosphatases catalyze the

of a phosphomonoester, removing a

moiety Moiety may refer to: Chemistry * Moiety (chemistry), a part or functional group of a molecule ** Moiety conservation, conservation of a subgroup in a chemical species Anthropology * Moiety (kinship), either of two groups into which a society is ...

from the substrate. Water is split in the reaction, with the -OH group attaching to the phosphate ion, and the H+ protonating the

hydroxyl In chemistry, a hydroxy or hydroxyl group is a functional group with the chemical formula and composed of one oxygen atom covalently bonded to one hydrogen atom. In organic chemistry, alcohols and carboxylic acids contain one or more hydrox ...

group of the other product. The net result of the reaction is the destruction of a phosphomonoester and the creation of both a phosphate ion and a molecule with a free hydroxyl group. Phosphatases are able to dephosphorylate seemingly different sites on their substrates with great specificity. Identifying the "phosphatase code," that is, the mechanisms and rules that govern substrate recognition for phosphatases, is still a work in progress, but the first comparative analysis of all the protein phosphatases encoded across nine

eukaryotic Eukaryotes () are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains of life. Bacte ...

'phosphatome'

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...

s is now available. Studies reveal that so called "docking interactions" play a significant role in substrate binding. A phosphatase recognizes and interacts with various motifs (elements of secondary structure) on its substrate; these motifs bind with low affinity to docking sites on the phosphatase, which are not contained within its

active site In biology and biochemistry, the active site is the region of an enzyme where substrate molecules bind and undergo a chemical reaction. The active site consists of amino acid residues that form temporary bonds with the substrate ( binding site) ...

. Although each individual docking interaction is weak, many interactions occur simultaneously, conferring a cumulative effect on binding specificity. Docking interactions can also allosterically regulate phosphatases and thus influence their catalytic activity.

Functions

In contrast to kinases, phosphatase enzymes recognize and catalyze a wider array of substrates and reactions. For example, in humans, Ser/Thr kinases outnumber Ser/Thr phosphatases by a factor of ten. To some extent, this disparity results from incomplete knowledge of the human phosphatome, that is, the complete set of phosphatases expressed in a cell, tissue, or organism. Many phosphatases have yet to be discovered, and for numerous known phosphatases, a substrate has yet to be identified. However, among well-studied phosphatase/kinase pairs, phosphatases exhibit greater variety than their kinase counterparts in both form and function; this may result from the lesser degree of conservation among phosphatases. Calcineurin

Distinctions

Phosphatases should not be confused with

phosphorylases In biochemistry, phosphorylases are enzymes that catalyze the addition of a phosphate group from an inorganic phosphate (phosphate+hydrogen) to an acceptor. :A-B + P A + P-B They include allosteric enzymes that catalyze the production of glucos ...

, which add phosphate groups.

Protein phosphatases

A protein phosphatase is an enzyme that dephosphorylates an amino acid residue of its protein substrate. Whereas protein kinases act as signaling molecules by phosphorylating proteins, phosphatases remove the phosphate group, which is essential if the system of intracellular signaling is to be able to reset for future use. The tandem work of kinases and phosphatases constitute a significant element of the cell's regulatory network. Phosphorylation (and dephosphorylation) is among the most common modes of

posttranslational modification Post-translational modification (PTM) is the covalent and generally enzymatic modification of proteins following protein biosynthesis. This process occurs in the endoplasmic reticulum and the golgi apparatus. Proteins are synthesized by ribos ...

in proteins, and it is estimated that, at any given time, up to 30% of all proteins are phosphorylated. Two notable protein phosphatases are PP2A and PP2B. PP2A is involved in multiple regulatory processes, such as DNA replication, metabolism, transcription, and development. PP2B, also called calcineurin, is involved in the proliferation of

T cell A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell r ...

s; because of this, it is the target of some drugs that seek to suppress the immune system. Nucleoside nucleotide general format

Nucleotidases

nucleotidase A nucleotidase is a hydrolytic enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of a nucleotide into a nucleoside and a phosphate. : A nucleotide + H2O = a nucleoside + phosphate For example, it converts adenosine monophosphate to adenosine, and guanosine mono ...

is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of a

nucleotide Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecu ...

, forming a nucleoside and a phosphate ion. Nucleotidases are essential for cellular

homeostasis In biology, homeostasis ( British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...

, because they are partially responsible for maintaining a balanced ratio of nucleotides to nucleosides. Some nucleotidases function outside the cell, creating nucleosides that can be transported into the cell and used to regenerate nucleotides via salvage pathways. Inside the cell, nucleotidases may help to maintain energy levels under stress conditions. A cell deprived of oxygen and nutrients may catabolize more nucleotides to boost levels of nucleoside triphosphates such as ATP, the primary energy currency of the cell.

In gluconeogenesis

Phosphatases can also act on

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may o ...

s, such as intermediates in gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis is a biosynthetic pathway wherein

glucose Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, u ...

is created from noncarbohydrate precursors; the pathway is essential because many tissues can only derive energy from glucose. Two phosphatases, glucose-6-phosphatase and fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, catalyze irreversible steps in gluconeogenesis. Each cleaves a phosphate group from a six-carbon sugar phosphate intermediate.

Classification

Within the larger class of phosphatase, the

Enzyme Commission The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) is an international non-governmental organisation concerned with biochemistry and molecular biology. Formed in 1955 as the International Union of Biochemistry (IUB), the union ...

recognizes 104 distinct enzyme families. Phosphatases are classified by substrate specificity and sequence homology in catalytic domains. Despite their classification into over one hundred families, all phosphatases still catalyze the same general hydrolysis reaction. In in-vitro experiments, phosphatase enzymes seem to recognize many different substrates, and one substrate may be recognized by many different phosphatases. However, when experiments have been carried out in-vivo, phosphatase enzymes have been shown to be incredibly specific. In some cases, a protein phosphatase (i.e. one defined by its recognition of protein substrates) can catalyze the dephosphorylation of nonprotein substrates. Similarly, dual-specificity tyrosine phosphatases can dephosphorylate not only

tyrosine -Tyrosine or tyrosine (symbol Tyr or Y) or 4-hydroxyphenylalanine is one of the 20 standard amino acids that are used by cells to synthesize proteins. It is a non-essential amino acid with a polar side group. The word "tyrosine" is from the G ...

residues, but also

serine Serine (symbol Ser or S) is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an α- amino group (which is in the protonated − form under biological conditions), a carboxyl group (which is in the deprotonated − for ...

residues. Thus, one phosphatase can exhibit the qualities of multiple phosphatase families.

References

External links

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