Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.22.6 (chymopapain)
 407 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A new model employing latex of papaya as an inflammagen has been developed for testing anti-inflammatory activity. The latex (exudate) was harvested from the unripe papaya fruit, which had been dried under vacuum. The latex was then suspended in 0.05 M sodium acetate buffer. This suspension when injected in rat hind paw produced concentration-dependent inflammation. Of the 0.25% of this suspension, 0.1 ml was found ideal for evaluating anti-inflammatory activity of test drugs. This concentration produced 70%-100% inflammation lasting for about 5 hr with a maximum effect at h 3. The test drugs employed were prednisolone, aspirin, indomethacin, phenylbutazone, ibuprofen, piroxicam, chloroquine, levamisole, and a mixture of boswellic acids. For comparison, these drugs were also tested against carrageenan-induced inflammation. All the test drugs--steroidal, aspirin, and non-aspirin-like--showed anti-inflammatory activity against latex-induced inflammation. The activity of chloroquine, levamisole, and boswellic acids was significantly more against latex as compared with that of the carrageenan model. The inflammation caused by latex may be attributed to both its hydrolytic enzymes--papain and chymopapain--and glutathione, the activator of these enzymes. These enzymes seem to act like lysosomal enzymes that are released in inflammatory disease processes which mediate inflammation by stimulating the synthesis of prostaglandins. The papaya latex-induced inflammation model appears to be a sensitive, broad-based, and relevant one likely to prove useful for discovering new and effective drugs against inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis.
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PMID:A sensitive and relevant model for evaluating anti-inflammatory activity-papaya latex-induced rat paw inflammation. 139 54

The cysteine-proteinase chymopapain from Carica papaya L. is used for chemonucleolysis of damaged human intervertebral spinal discs. The purification of this enzyme is difficult. To overcome these problems, we were looking for a substitute among the cysteine-proteinases of Carica candamarcensis Hook. The latex from unripe fruits was collected in an aqueous solution of methylethanethiolsulfonate to prevent proteolytic activities. The soluble fraction of the lypophilized product provided four enzymatically active peaks (CC-I-CC-IV) during chromatography on CM-Sephadex C-50 in sodium acetate buffer, pH5.0. They could be further purified by rechromatography under similar conditions. The isolated enzymes have been characterized by PAGE, analysis of the Fourier transform infrared spectra, preliminary studies of their specificities as well as a comparison of the N-terminal amino-acid sequences up to position 43. CC-III proved to be glycosylated. CC-I and CC-III from Carica candamarcensis Hook are suggested to correspond to papain and chymopapain from Carica papaya L., respectively.
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PMID:Isolation and preliminary characterization of the cysteine-proteinases from the latex of Carica candamarcensis Hook. 821 2