催化三联体通常指在水解酶和转移酶的活性位点中心同时作用的三个氨基酸残基（如蛋白酶、酰胺酶、酯酶、酰基转移酶、脂酶和β-内酰胺酶）。用于共价催化的亲核残基一般是酸-碱-亲核三联体。残基会形成一个电荷中继网络，以极化和活化亲核试剂，来进攻底物形成共价中间体，然后中间体水解，再生出游离的酶。亲核试剂大多是丝氨酸或半胱氨酸，也有少量是苏氨酸。

因为酶会折叠成复杂的三维结构，催化三联体的残基可能在其所在的氨基酸串行（一级结构）中离得很远，但最后它们将会折叠到一起。

虽然在功能上（甚至是三联体中的亲核体）进化趋异，催化三联体却是趋同进化的最好案例。对催化的化学约束使得至少23个独立的蛋白质超家族进化出了相同的催化方法。生物化学中，研究得最透彻之一的就是这些反应的作用机理。

A catalytic triad refers to the three amino acid residues that function together at the centre of the active site of some hydrolase and transferase enzymes (e.g. proteases, amidases, esterases, acylases, lipases and β-lactamases). An Acid-Base-Nucleophile triad is a common motif for generating a nucleophilic residue for covalent catalysis. The residues form a charge-relay network to polarise and activate the nucleophile, which attacks the substrate, forming a covalent intermediate which is then hydrolysed to regenerate free enzyme. The nucleophile is most commonly a serine or cysteine amino acid, but occasionally threonine. Because enzymes fold into complex three-dimensional structures, the residues of a catalytic triad can be far from each other along the amino-acid sequence (primary structure), however, they are brought close together in the final fold.