Phospholipase A2 is an enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 that in humans is encoded by the PLA2G1B gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

.

Function

Phospholipase A2 (EC 3.1.1.4) catalyzes the release of fatty acid

Fatty acid

In chemistry, especially biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with a long unbranched aliphatic tail , which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have a chain of an even number of carbon atoms, from 4 to 28. Fatty acids are usually derived from...

s from glycero-3-phosphocholines. The best known varieties are the digestive enzymes secreted as zymogens by the pancreas of mammals as well as fish. Sequences of pancreatic PLA2 enzymes from a variety of mammals have been reported. One striking feature of these enzymes is their close homology to venom phospholipases of snakes. Other forms of PLA2 have been isolated from brain, liver, lung, spleen, intestine, macrophages, leukocytes, erythrocytes, inflammatory exudates, chondrocytes, and platelets (Seilhamer et al., 1986) .

Further reading