*Corresponding author: +91 9990329492 Email: kirtisharma2k@rediffmail.com, krsharma@amity.edu Available online at http:/ / www.ijmb.bret.ac.in BRI EF REVI EW ON ALKALI NE PHOSPHATASES-AN OVERVI EW *Kirti Rani, Sanchi Datt and Rachita Rana Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Noida, 201303 (U.P.), India ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Received, 10th ,Novemer,2011 Received in revised form, 10 th ,December,2011 Accepted, 30 th ,Dcember,2011 Published online, 30 th ,January ,2012 Alkaline phosphatise (ALP, ALKP) (EC 3.1.3.1) is a hydrolase enzyme responsible for removing phosphate groups from many types of molecules, including nucleotides, proteins, and alkaloids. The process of removing the phosphate group is called dephosphorylation. As the name suggests, alkaline phosphatases are most effective in an alkaline environment. This enzyme serves many important roles in human beings and also in various industries and therefore has a wide range of applications. This review aims to study this enzyme in detail laying special emphasis on it’s mechanism, sources and industrial applications. © Copy Right, IJMB, 2011, Bret Research Journals. All rights reserved. Key words: Calf intestinal Alkaline phosphatase, shrimp alkaline phosphatase placental alkaline phosphatise INTRODUCTION Alkaline Phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1) enzyme hydrolyzes the phosphomonoesters from number of organic molecules like ribonucleotides, deoxy-ribonucleotides, proteins, alkaloids, phosphate esters and anhydrides of phosphoric acid . Alkaline Phosphatase is a metallodependent enzyme which shows its catalytic activity optima at alkaline pH. Alkaline Phosphatase can be isolated from variety of microorganisms including E.Coli, Pseudomonas, Aerobactor and Bacillus species. In all bacteria, ALPase found in the periplasmic membrane which is external to the cell membrane of bacteria. Usually the ALPase is produced at commercial level from E.coli or Calf intestine. Studies have been carried out for production, purification and characterization of ALPase from genus Bacillus. Like B.subtilis, B.subtilis JH646MS strain, they purified the two ALPase producing proteins. B.cereus, B.subtilis KIBGE-HAS strain newly synthesized .All these studies based on intracellular production of ALPase. Very little work has been done with respect to extracellular production of ALPase in genus Bacillus.The extracellular production of ALPase in Bacillus licheniformis was investigated which shows that it synthesizes 10 times more ALPase activity than is reported for other Bacillus species.However, the extracellular production of ALPase have been studied in Micrococcus sodonensis, Pseudomonas spp, Alkalophilic bacterium, Haloarcula marismortui and Arthobacter. Intracellular production of ALPase is quite tedius and expensive process in comparison to extracellular. This statement is supported by the study of Hulett et al, (1986) which explained that extracellular ALPase gave higher specific activity than intracellular ALPase is because of short and simple steps of purification (Mahesh et al, 2010). Mechanism Alkaline phosphatase removes 5' phosphate groups from DNA and RNA. It will also remove phosphates from nucleotides and proteins. These enzymes are most active at alkaline pH. International Journal of Microbiology and Bioinformatics - Vol.2, Issue, 1, pp.1- 4, January, 2012 I NTERNATI ONAL JOURNAL OF M I CROBI OLOGY AND BI OI NFORMATI CS REVI EW ARTI CLE ISSN: 2277-789X