Group A streptococci were tested for proteinase production and for the possible relationship of this production to the generation of bacteriocinlike inhibitor activity. Of 126 strains tested, 83% were positive for proteinase, and a similar distribution was found among strains isolated in association with rheumatic fever (89%) and nephritis (94%) and from uncomplicated acute infections (78%). Al...

A proteinase isolated from the respiratory pathogen, Coccidioides immitis, was shown to have collagenolytic and elastinolytic activity, as well as the ability to cleave human serum immunoglobulin G and secretory immunoglobulin A. Proteolytic activity was demonstrated with a bovine casein digestion assay in conidial culture exudates, mycelial and spherule culture filtrates, conidial and spherule...

Candida albicans infections in severely immunocompromized patients are not confined to mucosal surfaces; instead the fungus can invade through epithelial and endothelial layers into the bloodstream and spread to other organs, causing disseminated infections with often fatal outcome. We investigated whether secretion of the C. albicans acid proteinase facilitates invasion into deeper tissues by ...

INTRODUCTION Candida albicans is a commensal and opportunistic agent that causes infection in immunocompromised individuals. Several attributes contribute to the virulence and pathogenicity of this yeast, including the production of germ tubes (GTs) and extracellular hydrolytic enzymes, particularly phospholipase and proteinase. This study aimed to investigate GT production and phospholipase an...

The cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) causes severe cotton crop losses in North and South America. This report describes the presence of cysteine proteinase activity in the cotton boll weevil. Cysteine proteinase inhibitors from different sources were assayed against total A. grandis proteinases but, unexpectedly, no inhibitor tested was particularly effective. In order to screen for acti...

Digestion in the larger black flour beetle, Cynaeus angustus (LeConte), was studied to identify new control methods for this pest of stored grains and grain products. The physiological pH of the larval gut, as measured with extracts in water, was approximately 6.1, and the pH for optimal hydrolysis of casein by gut extracts was 6.2 when buffers were reducing. However, under non-reducing conditi...

The 3C-like proteinase of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus has been proposed to be a key target for structural-based drug design against SARS. In order to understand the active form and the substrate specificity of the enzyme, we have cloned, expressed, and purified SARS 3C-like proteinase. Analytic gel filtration shows a mixture of monomer and dimer at a protein concentrati...

The multicatalytic proteinase complex (proteasome) is a highmolecular-mass (approximately 700 kDa) intracellular proteinase which has been isolated under a variety of different names from a wide variety of eukaryotic cells and tissues (reviewed, Rivett, 1989a; Orlowski, 1990). The proteinase complex is composed of at least 24 subunits which include many different polypeptides arranged in a cyli...

The fluorescent proteinase transition-state analog inhibitor, dansyl-L-argininal (DnsArgH), may be a selective probe of cysteine and serine-type proteinases in a fibrosarcoma tumor cell line (HSDM1C1). DnsArgH binds with high affinity to proteinases because of its transition-state analog properties, and on association it gives a dramatically increased fluorescent yield. The DnsArgH binding is i...