13901 IUPAC Gold Book - depolymerase 10.1351/goldbook.13901 13901 current 1 Enzyme that is able to catalyse the depolymerization of a biomacromolecule. A depolymerase does not necessarily convert all the macromolecules to monomer molecules, occasionally, a specific oligomer is the end-product, depending on the mechanism. This term is generally used in the case of macromolecules produced by bacteria, because bacteria have the potential to degrade the biopolymers they synthesized. PAC, 2012, 84, 377. 'Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 389 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13901/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13901/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13901/plain Citation: 'depolymerase' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13901 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-17T23:57:44+00:00