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)

Calpain I is a calcium-dependent cysteine proteinase that has been recently shown to degrade proteoglycan in vitro. The authors injected calpain I, which was purified from human red blood cells, into the intervertebral discs of rabbits. Roentgenograms showed disc space narrowing 1 week after the injection. Histologically, proteoglycan of the nucleus pulposus and anulus fibrosus decreased and notochordal cells in the nucleus pulposus almost disappeared. Biochemical data of the nucleus pulposus showed that the amounts of smaller proteoglycans increased 1 and 4 weeks after the injection. Eight weeks after the injection, histologic and biochemical data showed recovery compared with the data 1 week after injection. These findings show that calpain I is as potent an enzyme as chondroitinase ABC and has milder chemonucleolytic action than chymopapain. Regarding its possible clinical application, autogenous calpain I as purified from the patient's own red blood cells may have advantages over chymopapain and chondroitinase ABC in that it will prevent anaphylactic reaction.
 ...
PMID:Chemonucleolysis with calpain I in rabbits. 843 17

Cysteine proteinases are widely distributed among living organisms. According to the most recent classifications (Rawlings and Barrett, 1993, 1994), they can be subdivided on the basis of sequence homology into 14 or even 20 different families, the most important being the papain and the calpain families. The papain-like cysteine proteinases are the most abundant among the cysteine proteinases. The family consists of papain and related plant proteinases such as chymopapain, caricain, bromelain, actinidin, ficin, and aleurain, and the lysosomal cathepsins B, H, L, S, C and K. Most of these enzymes are relatively small proteins with Mr values in the range 20000-35000 (reviewed in Brocklehurst et al., 1987; Polgar, 1989; Rawlings and Barrett, 1994; Berti and Storer, 1995), with the exception of cathepsin C, which is an oligomeric enzyme with Mr approximately 200000 (Metrione et al., 1970; Dolenc et al., 1995). A number of cysteine proteinases are located within lysosomes. Four of them, cathepsins B, C, H and L, are ubiquitous in lysosomes of animals, whereas cathepsin S has a more restricted localisation (Barrett and Kirschke, 1981; Kirschke and Wiederanders, 1994). The enzymes, except cathepsin C, are endopeptidases (reviewed in Kirschke et al., 1995), although cathepsin B was found also to be a dipeptidyl carboxypeptidase (Aronson and Barrett, 1978) and cathepsin H also an aminopeptidase (Koga et al., 1992). Cathepsin C is a dipeptidyl aminopeptidase, but at higher pH it exhibits also dipeptidyl transferase activity (reviewed in Kirschke et al., 1995). Among the lysosomal cysteine proteinases, cathepsin L was found to be the most active in degradation of protein substrates, such as collagen, elastin and azocasein (Barrett and Kirschke, 1981; Maciewicz et al., 1987; Mason et al., 1989), arid cathepsin B the most abundant (Kirschke and Barrett, 1981). All the enzymes are optimally active at slightly acidic pH, although their pH optima for degradation of synthetic substrates vary from 5.5 for cathepsin L to 6.8 for cathepsin H (reviewed in Kirschke et al., 1995). Several other lysosomal cysteine proteinases, such as cathepsins N, T and K, are known, although their properties are less well characterised (reviewed in Kirschke et al., 1995). In particular cathepsin K has attracted recent interest (Bromme et al., 1996; Shi et al., 1995; Bossard et al., 1996; Drake et al., 1996) and was found to be expressed specifically in osteoclasts (Drake et al., 1996) with properties similar to cathepsin L (Bossard et al., 1996).
 ...
PMID:Structural and functional aspects of papain-like cysteine proteinases and their protein inhibitors. 916 64

Kiwifruit cysteine proteinase inhibitors (KCPIs) were purified from the cortex and seeds of kiwifruit after inactivation of the abundant cortex cysteine proteinase actinidain. One major (KCPI1) and four minor cystatins were identified from Actinidia deliciosa ripe mature kiwifruit cortex as well as a seed KCPI from A. chinensis. The predominant cortex cystatin, KCPI1, inhibited clan CA, family C1 (papain family) cysteine proteinases (papain, chymopapain, bromelain, ficin, human cathepsins B, H and L, actinidain and the house dust mite endopeptidase 1), while cysteine proteinases belonging to other families, [clostripain (C11), streptopain (C10) and calpain (C2)] were not inhibited. Inhibition constants (K(I)) ranged between 0.001 nM for cathepsin L and 0.98 nM for endopeptidase 1. The K(I) (14 nM) for KCPI1 inhibiting actinidain is at least 2 orders of magnitude higher than for other plant proteinases measured. The cortex KCPI1 and a seed KCPI purified from seeds had the same N-terminal sequence (VAAGGWRPIESLNSAEVQDV). BLAST-matching the peptide sequence against an in-house generated Actinidia EST database, identified 81 cDNAs that exactly matched the measured KCPI1 peptide sequence. Peptide sequences of two other cortex KCPIs each exactly matched a predicted peptide sequence of a cDNA from kiwifruit. The predicted peptide sequence of KCPI1 of 116 amino acids encodes a signal peptide and does not contain cysteine. Without the signal peptide (mature protein), KCPI1 has a molecular mass of approximately 11 kDa, possesses the consensus sequence characteristic for the phytocystatins and shows the highest homology to a cystatin from Citrusxparadisi (52% identity). This is the first report of phytocystatins from the Ericales.
 ...
PMID:Purification and characterization of phytocystatins from kiwifruit cortex and seeds. 1469 68