The substrate specificity of the purified rabbit plasma alkaline phosphatase (ALPase) was determined towards a extended range of potential substrates including relatively simple phosphate derivatives as p-NPP and indolyl phosphate, and several synthetic peptides and phosphoproteins. These results further estabilish the broad substrate specificity of these circulating enzymes. Interestingly, the plasma ALPase preferentially dephosphorylates Thr over Ser residues, as demonstrated with a series of synthetic peptides. The latter result is in contradiction to the behaviour of the tissue ALPase, which is thought to the ultimate source of plasma ALPase, and open therefore new perspectives with respective to the origin and "solubilisation" processes of these enzymes. Dephsphrylation of protein substrates by endogenous and isolated plasma ALPases indicates that ALPase probably displays protein phosphatase activity in vivo.