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<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Butyrylcholinesterase is an enzyme that may serve as a marker of metabolic syndrome. We (a) measured its level in persons with diabetes mellitus, (b) constructed a family tree of the enzyme using nucleotide sequences downloaded from NCBI. Butyrylcholinesterase was estimated colorimetrically using a commercially available kit (<it>Randox Lab, UK</it>). Phylogenetic trees were constructed by distance method (<it>Fitch and Margoliash </it>method) and by <it>maximum parsimony </it>method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was a negative correlation between serum total cholesterol and butyrylcholinesterase (-0.407; p < 0.05) and between serum LDL cholesterol and butyrylcholinesterase (-0.435; p < 0.05). There was no statistically significant correlation among the other biochemical parameters. In the evolutionary tree construction both methods gave similar trees, except for an inversion in the position of <it>Sus scrofa </it>(M62778) and <it>Oryctolagus cuniculus </it>(M62779) between Fitch and Margoliash, and maximum parsimony methods.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The level of butyrylcholinesterase enzyme was inversely related to serum cholesterol; dendrogram showed that the structures from evolutionarily close species were placed near each other.</p>