Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.21.73 (urokinase-type plasminogen activator)
 10,685 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A strong fibrinolytic enzyme was readily obtained in saline extracts of the earthworm, Lumbricus rubellus. It hydrolyzed not only plasminogen-rich fibrin plates, but also plasminogen-free fibrin plates. The average fibrinolytic activity was about 100 CU (plasmin units) or 250 IU (urokinase units)/g wet weight. The molecular weight and isoelectric point were about 20,000 and 3.4, respectively. The enzyme was heat-stable and displayed a very broad optimal pH range. DFP and SBTI strongly inhibited the enzyme, but the anti-plasmin agent, t-AMCHA, exerted little effect under the same conditions. Purification of the enzyme was performed and three partially purified fractions were obtained. These three fractions were further subdivided. The first fraction (F-I) was divided into three fractions (F-I-0, F-I-1, and F-I-2), which exhibited similar biochemical characteristics. The second fraction (F-II) could not be subdivided. The third fraction (F-III) was divided into two fractions (F-III-1 and F-III-2). Based on results for their enzymatic activities against various substrates, the fraction I enzymes are thought to represent a chymotrypsin-like enzyme and the fraction III enzymes to represent a trypsin-like enzyme. The fraction II enzyme appears to be neither a trypsin- or chymotrypsin-like enzyme nor an elastase. The amino acid compositions of the six enzymes were estimated. Compared with other serine enzymes, these enzymes contained very abundant asparagine or aspartic acid, and there was very little proline or lysine. From the above data, these enzymes are regarded as novel fibrinolytic enzymes, and we name them collectively as Lumbrokinase from the generic name of the earthworm.
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PMID:A novel fibrinolytic enzyme extracted from the earthworm, Lumbricus rubellus. 196 Aug 90

The present paper describes chemical and functional properties of protease nexin, a serine protease inhibitor released from cultured human fibroblasts. It is shown that protease nexin is actually synthesized by fibroblasts and represents about 1% of their secreted protein. Analysis of the amino acid composition of purified protease nexin indicates that it is evolutionarily related to antithrombin III and heparin cofactor II. Protease nexin contains approximately 6% carbohydrate, with 2.3% amino sugar, 1.1% neutral sugar, and 3.0% sialic acid. The Mr calculated from equilibrium sedimentation analysis is 43,000. Protease nexin is a broad specificity inhibitor of trypsin-like serine proteases. It reacts rapidly with trypsin (kassoc = 4.2 +/- 0.4 X 10(6) M-1 s-1), thrombin (kassoc = 6.0 +/- 1.3 X 10(5) M-1 s-1), urokinase (kassoc = 1.5 +/- 0.1 X 10(5) M-1 s-1), and plasmin (kassoc = 1.3 +/- 0.1 X 10(5) M-1 s-1), and slowly inhibits Factor Xa and the gamma subunit of nerve growth factor but does not inhibit chymotrypsin-like proteases or leukocyte elastase. In the presence of heparin, protease nexin inhibits thrombin at a nearly diffusion-controlled rate. Two heparin affinity classes of protease nexin can be detected. The present characterization pertains to the fraction of protease nexin having the higher affinity for heparin. The low affinity material, which is the minor fraction, is lost during purification.
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PMID:Protease nexin. Properties and a modified purification procedure. 399 57

A protein capable of inhibiting trypsin and other pancreatic proteases has been purified to homogeneity from Escherichia coli by conventional procedures and affinity chromatography. It is stable for at least 30 min at 100 degrees C and pH 1.0, but it is inactivated by digestion with pepsin. The inhibitor has an apparent molecular weight of 38,000 as determined by gel filtration and must be a homodimer since it contains a single 18,000-dalton subunit upon sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The inhibitor has an isoelectric point of 6.1. One dimeric molecule of the inhibitor can bind two trypsin molecules to form a mixed tetrameric complex, in which trypsin molecules are completely inhibited. The inhibitor is not digested by the trypsin. When N-benzoyl-DL-arginine-p-nitroanilide was used as a trypsin substrate, half-maximal inhibition was observed at 22 nM. This protein also inhibits chymotrypsin, pancreatic elastase, rat mast cell chymase, and human serosal urokinase, but it does not inhibit human pulmonary tryptase, kallikrein, papain, pepsin, Staphylococcus aureus V8 protease, subtilisin, and thermolysin. Surprisingly, it did not inhibit any of the eight soluble endoproteases recently isolated from E. coli (i.e. proteases Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ci, and Pi) nor the chymotrypsin-like (protease I) and trypsin-like (protease II) esterases in E. coli. The inhibitor is localized to the periplasmic space and its level did not change with different growth media or stages of cell growth. The physiological function of this E. coli trypsin inhibitor is unknown. We suggest that E. coli trypsin inhibitor be named "Ecotin."
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PMID:Purification from Escherichia coli of a periplasmic protein that is a potent inhibitor of pancreatic proteases. 641 24

The interaction of novel series of synthetic inhibitors with various serine proteases (leukocyte elastase, thrombin, cathepsin G, chymotrypsin, plasminogen activators and plasmin) and an aspartic protease (HIV-1 protease) were studied. Various aspects were analyzed: mechanism of action, structure-activity relationships, and in some cases, molecular modelling and biological evaluation. Functionalized cyclopeptides and N-aryl azetidin-2-ones behaved as suicide substrates acting specifically on trypsin-like proteases (thrombin or urokinase) and elastases, respectively. Novel hydrazinopeptides acted as reversible inhibitors of elastases. Coumarin derivatives inactivated very efficiently chymotrypsin-like proteases (k(inact)/K(I) = 760,000 M(-1) .s(-1)). Inhibitors of HIV-1 protease acting either as inactivators or dimerization inhibitors are under investigation. The inhibitors described above are useful for elucidating the biological roles of the target enzymes and constitute potential drugs.
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PMID:[Synthetic inhibitors targeting serine and aspartic acid proteases]. 877 49

Prostate specific antigen (uPSA) was purified to homogeneity from human urine using SuperQ-Toyopearl, Sulfate-Cellulofine, Phenyl-Toyopearl, CM-Sepharose, anti-urokinase IgG Sepharose and Sephadex G-100. The purified uPSA gave a major band at 32.9 kDa on SDS-PAGE under the reduced condition. However, it shows multiple bands on native PAGE. Substrate specificity of purified uPSA is identical with that of PSA from human seminal plasma and uPSA shows the kallikrein and chymotrypsin-like activities. On the analysis of N-terminal amino acid, two amino acid residues at N-terminal position of uPSA were detected and other amino acid sequence of uPSA was identical with that of sPSA. In addition, we isolated the multiple components of uPSA using anion-exchange chromatography. They were almost the same in amino acid composition and N-terminal amino acid sequences and showed differences in lectin-blotting pattern.
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PMID:Purification and characterization of prostate specific antigen from human urine. 936 70

Brain serine proteases are implicated in developmental processes, synaptic plasticity, and in disorders including Alzheimer's disease. The spectrum of the major enzymes expressed in brain has not been established previously. We now present a systematic study of the serine proteases expressed in adult rat and mouse hippocampus. Using a combination of techniques including polymerase chain reaction amplification and Northern blotting we show that tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) is the major species represented. Unexpectedly, the next most abundant species were RNK-Met-1, a lymphocyte protease not reported previously in brain, and two new family members, BSP1 (brain serine protease 1) and BSP2. We report full-length sequences of the two new proteases; homologies indicate that these are of tryptic specificity. Although BSP2 is expressed in several brain regions, BSP1 expression is strikingly restricted to hippocampus. Other enzymes represented, but at lower levels, included elastase IV, proteinase 3, complement C2, chymotrypsin B, chymotrypsin-like protein, and Hageman factor. Although thrombin and urokinase-type plasminogen activator were not detected in the primary screen, low level expression was confirmed using specific polymerase chain reaction primers. In contrast, and despite robust expression of t-PA, the usual t-PA substrate plasminogen was not expressed at detectable levels.
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PMID:Serine proteases in rodent hippocampus. 972 24

In the present study, we determined the impact of 5 and 10 days of muscle deconditioning induced by hindlimb suspension (HS) on the ubiquitin-proteasome system of protein degradation and caspase enzyme activities in rat soleus muscles. A second goal was to determine whether activities of matrix metalloproteinase-2/9 (MMP-2/9) and urokinase-type/tissue-type plasminogen activator (PAs) were responsive to HS. As expected, HS led to a pronounced atrophy of soleus muscle. Level of ubiquitinated proteins, chymotrypsin-like activity of 20S proteasome, and Bcl-2-associated gene product-1 protein level were all transitory increased in response to 5 days of HS. These changes may thus potentially account for the decrease in muscle mass observed in response to 5 days of HS. Caspase-3 activity was significantly increased throughout the experimental period, whereas activities of caspase-6, another effector caspase, and caspase-9, the mitochondrial-dependent activator of both caspase-3 and -6, were only increased in response to 10 days of HS. This suggests that caspase-3 may be regulated through mitochondrial-independent and mitochondrial-dependent mechanisms in response to HS. Finally, MMP-2/9 activities remained unchanged, whereas PAs activities were increased after 5 days of HS. Overall, these data suggest that time-dependent regulation of intracellular and extracellular proteinases are important in setting the new phenotype of rat soleus muscle in response to HS.
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PMID:Regulation of ubiquitin-proteasome system, caspase enzyme activities, and extracellular proteinases in rat soleus muscle in response to unloading. 1733 80

There are indications of elevation of some inflammatory serine proteases in barrier damaged skin (e.g. plasmin and urokinase). Moreover, many other serine protease activities are present such as desquamatory enzymes as well as a newly detected tryptase-like serine protease. However, the activities of these proteases have never been correlated with stratum corneum (SC) barrier function. The activity of extractable key serine proteases (SC trypsin-like kallikreins, SC chymotrypsin-like kallikreins, SC tryptase-like serine protease, urokinase and plasmin) was measured from the outermost layers of SC obtained from facial tape strippings in clinically normal subjects. The protein content of the tape strippings was quantified by absorption measurements with the novel infrared densitometer SquameScan 850A and the protease activities by the use of fluorogenic peptide substrates. SC barrier function, SC hydration and skin surface pH were measured using AquaFlux, NOVA dermal phase meter and Skin-pH-Meter, respectively. As expected, SC hydration was reduced with increased transepidermal water loss (TEWL) values indicative of barrier impairment. Surprisingly, SC chymotrypsin-like activity showed no correlation with hydration or TEWL, whereas all other enzymes positively correlated with impaired barrier function and some were statistically significant: SC trypsin-like kallikreins (R(2 )=0.66, P < 0.01), SC tryptase-like enzyme (R(2 )=0.95, P < 0.001), plasmin (R(2 )=0.86, P < 0.001) and urokinase (R(2 )=0.50, P < 0.05). All enzymes except urokinase also negatively correlated with SC hydration. Elevated levels of SC serine proteases have been associated with some dermatological disorders, such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and rosacea but these results indicate that these enzymes are also elevated with milder forms of barrier disruption, which is not clinically evident as irritated skin. As these proteases are elevated in the SC, they will also be elevated in the epidermis where they can be involved in neurogenic inflammation and epidermal barrier impairment via activation of the protease-activated receptors. These results highlight the need for using serine protease inhibitors especially for urokinase and plasmin, SC tryptase-like serine protease and possibly SC trypsin-like kallikreins even in milder forms of barrier damage.
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PMID:Increased basal transepidermal water loss leads to elevation of some but not all stratum corneum serine proteases. 1909 44