Acetylesterase

In biochemistry, an acetylesterase (EC 3.1.1.6) is a class of enzyme which catalyzes the hydrolysis of acetic esters into an alcohol and acetic acid:

${\displaystyle {\ce {R-OC(O)CH3 + H2O}}\quad {\xrightarrow[{\text{acetylesterase}}]{}}\quad {\ce {R-OH + HO-C(O)CH3}}}$

acetylesterase
Identifiers
EC no.	3.1.1.6
CAS no.	9000-82-2
Databases
IntEnz	IntEnz view
BRENDA	BRENDA entry
ExPASy	NiceZyme view
KEGG	KEGG entry
MetaCyc	metabolic pathway
PRIAM	profile
PDB structures	RCSB PDB PDBe PDBsum
Gene Ontology	AmiGO / QuickGO
Search PMC articles PubMed articles NCBI proteins

This enzyme belongs to the family of hydrolases, specifically those acting on carboxylic ester bonds (esterases). The systematic name of this enzyme class is acetic-ester acetylhydrolase. Other names in common use include C-esterase (in animal tissues), acetic ester hydrolase, chloroesterase, p-nitrophenyl acetate esterase, and citrus acetylesterase.

Structural studies

As of late 2007, 3 structures have been solved for this class of enzymes, with PDB accession codes 1BS9, 1G66, and 2AXE.