cDNAs encoding three protein phosphatases, termed PP2Bw (Da Cruz e Silva, E.F. and Cohen, P.T.W. (1989) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1009, 293-296), PPZ1 and PPZ2 that have been isolated from a Clontech 'rabbit brain' library are shown to be Saccharomyces cerevisiae clones. PPZ1 and PPZ2 are two novel yeast phosphatases showing 93% amino acid sequence identity to one another. PPZ1 shows approx. 60% sequence identity to S. cerevisiae or mammalian PP1 and approx. 40% identity to S. cerevisiae or mammalian PP2A. These and other observations suggest that the two isoforms of PPZ have functions distinct from those of PP1.