The high-molecular-weight serine proteinase inhibitors (serpins) are restricted, generally, to inhibiting proteinases of the serine mechanistic class. However, the viral serpin, cytokine response modifier A, and the human serpins, antichymotrypsin and squamous cell carcinoma antigen 1 (SCCA1), inhibit different members of the cysteine proteinase class. Although serpins employ a mobile reactive ...

Zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis is caused by Leishmania infantum (L. infantum),and its major reservoir hosts are domestic dogs, most of which are asymptomatic. This study aimed to detect L. infantum spp. in asymptomatic stray dogs by molecular and serological methods in Mashhad, Iran, during 2011-12. In this study, 94 asymptomatic stray dogs were randomly selected and their blood samples were c...

Increasing levels of inhibitors that target cysteine and/or serine proteinases were fed to Tribolium castaneum larvae, and the properties of digestive proteinases were compared in vitro. Cysteine proteinases were the major digestive proteinase class in control larvae, and serine proteinase activity was minor. Dietary serine proteinase inhibitors had minimal effects on either the developmental t...

New cysteine proteinase inhibitors, TMC-52A, B, C, and D, were isolated from the fungal fermentation broth. On the basis of a taxonomical study, the producing strain, F-2665, was characterized as Gliocladium sp. Spectroscopic analyses and chemical degradation have shown TMC-52A to D to be epoxysuccinyl peptides. TMC-52A to D strongly inhibited cysteine proteinases, in particular, cathepsin L wi...

Amebiasis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the tropical world. Entamoeba histolytica is now recognized as a separate species from the morphologically identical E. dispar, which cannot invade. Cysteine proteinases are a key virulence factor of E. histolytica and play a role in intestinal invasion by degrading the extracellular matrix and circumventing the host immune respon...

Intact, metabolically active rumen protozoa prepared by gravity sedimentation and washing in a mineral solution at 10 to 15 degrees C had comparatively low proteolytic activity on azocasein and low endogenous proteolytic activity. Protozoa washed in 0.1 M potassium phosphate buffer (pH 6.8) at 4 degrees C and stored on ice autolysed when they were warmed to 39 degrees C. They also exhibited low...

Cysteine proteinase inhibitor (CPI) forms from human liver were purified from the tissue homogenate by alkaline denaturation of cysteine proteinases with which they are complexed, acetone fractionation, affinity chromatography on S-carboxymethyl-papain-Sepharose and chromatofocusing. The multiple forms of CPI were shown immunologically to be forms of two proteins, referred to as CPI-A (comprisi...