Phosphatases
Hydrolyses a terminal phosphate from its attachment point: a phosphomonoester, not a backbone linkage.
This is still hydrolysis. Water is the nucleophile, the bond is destroyed, and the phosphate ends up in solution rather than anywhere useful. What makes phosphatases worth a section is not the chemistry, which you have already seen twice, but the consequence: a five prime end without a phosphate cannot be ligated. Removing it is how you stop a molecule doing something you do not want it to do. Section divider: Phosphatases. The lede defines them: they hydrolyse a terminal phosphate from its attachment point, a phosphomonoester rather than a backbone linkage.