Phospholipase A2 - Manual

Phospholipase A2 represents a class of heat-stable, calcium-dependent enzymes catalyzing the hydrolysis of the 2-acyl bond of 3-n-phosphoglycerides. This enzyme is named Phospholipase A2 to denote its 2-acyl specificity (Uthe 1971).

Phospholipase A2 has been isolated from pancreas, snake and bee venoms. Forst et al. (1986), Chan et al. (1982), Coulard et al. (1987) and Horigome et al. (1987) report on platelet phospholipase A2. The primary structure of human pancreatic PLA2 has been reported by Verheij et al. (1983).

Phospholipases are involved in lipid metabolism and are important probes of structure-function relationships in biological membranes. Dawson 1973).