Abstract
Studies attempting to elucidate the physiological role of esterases have been complicated by their lack of specificity exhibited and the overall failure to identify specific substrates that may be targets for an esterase under study. The availability of naphthyl esters and azo dyes containing ester linkages, coupled with histochemical staining techniques that permitted the visualization of hydrolytic activities following electrophoretic separations, led to classifications according to substrate preference. However, the early broad classification of esterases in vertebrate plasma into three types by Augustinsson (1961)—carboxyl esterases (EC 3.1.1.1), aryl esterases (EC 3.1.1.2), and cholinesterases (EC 3.1.1.8)—must be viewed within the context of overlapping activities.
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Levitz, M., Banerjee, S., Katz, J., Raju, U., Finlay, T.H. (1993). A Role for Esterases in Steroid Hormone Turnover. In: Troll, W., Kennedy, A.R. (eds) Protease Inhibitors as Cancer Chemopreventive Agents. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2882-1_17
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