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What conditions are necessary for human pancreatic lipase to activate? Is there an optimal temperature or pH? How quickly does it take effect?

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Check this out: 123helpme.com/view.asp?id=123079 – Daniel δ Mar 19 '12 at 17:25
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There are several different lipases, you might want to specify which one you're interested in. It might help to add your motivation for asking this question, so that we might better understand what exactly you are looking for. – Mad Scientist♦ Mar 19 '12 at 18:18
@Danielδ Oh my. That is almost exactly the experiment I did the other day, except I got no results. I'm wondering if my lipase was kind of smurfed. – Mahnax Mar 20 '12 at 4:25
@MadScientist I was using a 10% lipase solution; that was all the information about the kind of lipase that I was given. – Mahnax Mar 20 '12 at 4:26
Which lipase do you have in mind? From which organism(s)? There are over 90 lipase genes in the human genome. – Larry_Parnell Mar 20 '12 at 14:13
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1 Answer

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The protein referred to in the question is encoded by gene PNLIP, pancreatic lipase. From this annotation of the protein, I see that there is a signal peptide from amino acids 1 to 16. Thus, this signal peptide must be cleaved before the protein can be active in its digestion of emulsified triacylglyerides.

A paper describes the structural changes induced in human pancreatic lipase by lowering the pH. The secondary structure of the enzyme is stable within a pH range of 3.0 to 6.5. At this pH, a reversible opening of the lid controlling the access to the active site was observed. So, there is another aspect of activation - pH and the ability to open the enzyme lid so that the fat molecule enters the active site.

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