Human carboxylesterases: a comprehensive review

Human carboxylesterases (CES) play crucial roles in both endo- and xenobiotic metabolism, which arouse great interest in the discovery of potent CES modulators to regulate endobiotic metabolism or to improve the outcomes of ester drugs. This review covers the structural and catalytic features of human CES, tissue distributions, biological functions and substrate specificities of two predominant human CES, as well as the significance and recent progress on the discovery of human CES modulators.324