PANCREATIC LIPASE : CRYSTALLIZATION, DOMAIN INVESTIGATION AND CLONING

Abstract

Pancreatic lipase is involved in dietary fat digestion. The enzyme, which belongs to a special class of esterases, realizes an heterogeneous catalysis. Although extensively studied for many years, the mechanism of action of lipase on emulsified substrates is still not elucidated. Crystals of man and horse pancreatic lipases suitable for an X-ray investigation have been obtained. The cell parameters of the various crystalline forms have been determined. Heavy atom derivatives are under investigation. The spatial organization of pancreatic lipase in two well defined domains has been studied through limited proteolysis of the enzyme from various species. A horse pancreatic cDNA library has been built and the cDNAs encoding for lipase and colipases isolated.