High-Mr cysteine proteinases from rat skeletal-muscle.

Homology within the N-terminal extension of cysteine proteinases.

It is now well established that the cysteine proteinases of plants (e.g. papain, actinidin, bromelain) and animals (e.g. cathepsins B, H and L) are homologous (see Takio et al., 1983) and almost certainly evolved from a common ancestral protein. For all but one of the cysteine proteinases sequenced to date the N-terminal residues can be exactly aligned with one another at a distance of 25-29 re...

Degradation of myofibrillar proteins by trypsin-like serine proteinases.

The effects of the Ca2+-activated cysteine proteinase, the rat trypsin-like serine proteinase and bovine trypsin on myofibrillar proteins from rabbit skeletal muscle are compared. 2. Myofibrils that had been treated at neutral pH with the Ca2+-dependent proteinase and with the rat enzyme were (a) analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis and (b) examined in the elec...

Bivalent DNA Vaccination with Genes Encoding Leishmania major Cysteine Proteinases Type I and II Protects Mice Against Infectious Challenge

Human autophagins, a family of cysteine proteinases potentially implicated in cell degradation by autophagy.

We have cloned four human cDNAs encoding putative cysteine proteinases that have been tentatively called autophagins. These proteins are similar to Apg4/Aut2, a yeast enzyme involved in the activation of Apg8/Aut7 during the process of autophagy. The identified proteins ranging in length from 393 to 474 amino acids also contain several structural features characteristic of cysteine proteinases ...

Suppression by Cathepsin L Inhibitors of the Invasion of Amnion Membranes by Murine Cancer Cells1

Cysteine proteinases, particularly cathepsins B and L, have been strongly implicated in fostering metastasis in mice. In this work four different inhibitors of cysteine proteinases have been shown to inhibit the invasion of the human amnion by murine melanoma and mammary carcinoma cells in vitro. Two of the inhibitors are synthetic peptides |ZPhePheCHN2 (benzyloxycarbonyl-i.-phenylalanyl-i.-phe...