Background:

Members of the AB hydrolase superfamily have diverse catalytic functions and play a crucial role in the metabolism of lipids. DAGLα (diacylglycerol lipase alpha), also known as NSDDR or C11orf11, is a 1,042 amino acid multi-pass membrane protein that belongs to the AB hydrolase superfamily. Highly expressed in brain and pancreas, DAGLα uses calcium as a cofactor to catalyze the hydrolysis of diacylglycerol (DAG) to 2-arachidonoyl-glycerol (2-AG), a reaction that is required for axonal growth and for retrograde synaptic signaling at mature synapses. DAGLα functions as at optimal pH of 7 and its activity is inhibited by p-hydroxy-mercuri-benzoate and HgCl2. The gene encoding DAGLα maps to human chromosome 11, which houses over 1,400 genes and comprises nearly 4% of the human genome.