Phosphatases

Phosphatases are enzymes that catalyze the dephosphorylation of substrate proteins, reversing the modifying action of kinases by removing phosphate groups. Together with kinases, they form a reversible phosphorylation regulatory network that finely tunes the intensity, duration, and spatiotemporal distribution of signaling pathways. Phosphatases play important regulatory roles in the cell cycle, immune responses, metabolic regulation, and neural synaptic plasticity; their aberrations are closely associated with metabolic and neurological diseases.