Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:3.4.24.27 (thermolysin)
 1,894 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The differential cleavage of surface proteins of Borrelia burgdorferi IRS strains by several proteases was examined. Proteinase K, trypsin, chymotrypsin and thermolysin all cleaved the outer surface protein B (OspB) to undetectable levels by Coomassie Brilliant Blue staining, whereas some residual protein was detected by immunoblotting with polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies. Not even antigenic fragments were detectable by immunoblotting with 1A8 monoclonal antibody reactive with OspB. Less effective or ineffective was the cleavage of OspB by V8 protease and proteinase A, respectively. The outer surface protein A was cleaved only by proteinase K. The effect of trypsin on borreliae viability and adhesion to cultured cells was also studied. The trypsin treatment of borreliae did not impair the viability of organisms which continued to synthesize the cleaved OspB. The attachment of B. burgdorferi to HEp-2 cells was reduced by 41% after treatment with trypsin, whereas preincubation of borreliae with monoclonal antibody 1A8 and guinea pig immune serum reduced the adhesion of borreliae to the cells by 32% and 87%, respectively.
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PMID:Differential cleavage of surface proteins of Borrelia burgdorferi by proteases. 160 94

A new protease inhibitor was purified to apparent homogeneity from a culture medium of Photorhabdus luminescens by ammonium sulfate precipitation and preparative isoelectric focusing followed by affinity chromatography. Ph. luminescens, a bacterium symbiotically associated with the insect-parasitic nematode Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, exists in two morphologically distinguishable phases (primary and secondary). It appears that only the secondary-phase bacterium produces this protease inhibitor. The protease inhibitor has an M:(r) of approximately 12000 as determined by SDS-PAGE. Its activity is stable over a pH range of 3.5-11 and at temperatures below 50 degrees C. The N-terminal 16 amino acids of the protease inhibitor were determined as STGIVTFKND(X)GEDIV and have a very high sequence homology with the N-terminal region of an endogenous inhibitor (IA-1) from the fruiting bodies of an edible mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus. The purified protease inhibitor inactivated the homologous protease with an almost 1:1 stoichiometry. It also inhibited proteases from a related insect-nematode-symbiotic bacterium, Xenorhabdus nematophila. Interestingly, when present at a molar ratio of 5 to 1, this new protease inhibitor completely inactivated the activity of both trypsin and elastase. The activity of proteinase A and cathepsin G was partially inhibited by this bacterial protease inhibitor, but it had no effect on chymotrypsin, subtilisin, thermolysin and cathepsins B and D. The newly isolated protease inhibitor from the secondary-phase bacteria and its specific inhibition of its own protease provides an explanation as to why previous investigators failed to detect the presence of protease activity in the secondary-phase bacteria. The functional implications of the protease inhibitor are also discussed in relation to the physiology of nematode-symbiotic bacteria.
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PMID:A new broad-spectrum protease inhibitor from the entomopathogenic bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens. 1110 72