Four enzymes with phospholipase A 1 (PLA 1 ) activity were purified from the fruiting bodies of the basidiomycete Armillaria ostoyae. The enzymes (PLA 1 -1, -2, -3 and -4) showed similar isoelectric points (4.3, 3.9, 4.0 and 4.0) and apparent molecular masses in the range of 35-47 kDa. Mass spectrometric analyses of proteolytic fragments revealed sequences homologous to a/b-hydrolase fold enzymes. The enzymes share one conserved region with fungal phospholipases B and the active site sequence with bacterial esterases and PLA 1 s. PLA 1 -1 cleaves phospholipids and lysophospholipids with an optimum activity at pH 5.3. In contrast, PLA 1 -2, -3 and -4 are characterized by broad pH optima in the slightly acidic to neutral range and are additionally capable of hydrolyzing mono-and diglycerides as well as fatty acid methyl esters. All enzymes favor glycerol-based lipids with a single medium-sized fatty acid moiety in the sn-1 position but show reduced activity towards the corresponding 1,2-diacyl derivatives with bulky long-chain or inflexible Data from mass-spectrometric peptide sequencing are available in the PRIDE database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pride/) under the accession numbers 17662-17665.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (