Abstract
The phosphatase enzymes are numerous in living systems and appear to function in a broad range of biological activities. Common to all phosphatase enzyme reactions are phosphorylated substrates wherein the phosphate moiety is removed via the hydrolytic action of the phosphatase. | Although most all tissues have some phosphatase enzyme activity, a rather large proportion of the studies in the literature have been concerned with the collagenous connective tissues (1,2,3,4,5,6). The precise mode of action for the phosphatases in connective tissue is not entirely understood except for the hydrolytic reaction on polyphosphates to initiate bone mineralization (7,8,9). Other reactions of phosphatases in so far as synthetic or degradative reactions on protein or polysaccharride molecules is at best speculative in nature (10). Although these reactions are not understood, such phophatase reactions are ubiquitous in cellular mechanisms. The broad range of phosphatase reactions and relative substrate nonspecificity makes them extremely difficult to study.