<p>The following uncharacterised proteins have been shown to share regions of similarities; yeast chromosome II hypothetical protein YBR177c; yeast chromosome XIII hypothetical protein YMR210w; yeast chromosome XVI hypothetical protein YPL095c; <taxon tax_id="562">Escherichia coli</taxon> hypothetical protein yheT; human protein pHPS1-2; Drosophila protein anon-23D; <taxon tax_id="3330">Picea glauca</taxon> (white spruce) late embryogenesis abundant protein EMB8; and <taxon tax_id="6239">Caenorhabditis elegans</taxon> hypothetical protein C44C1.5. These are proteins of about 38 to 51kDa whose central region contains a number of conserved regions.</p><p>Members of this group are predicted, based on distant sequence similarity, to be hydrolases with an alpha/beta hydrolase fold. This prediction is strengthened by several observations: (1) the proteins fit a three-dimensional motif that summarises the structure and sequence variations of the active sites of known alpha/beta hydrolases; (2) members align with structurally known hydrolases using a threading fold-prediction algorithm; and (3) members fit a conservation profile produced by a multiple sequence alignment of alpha/beta hydrolases [<cite idref="PUB00016121"/>].</p> Uncharacterised protein family UPF0017, hydrolase-like, conserved site