Use of Chromogenic Peptide Substrates in the Study of Proteolytic Enzymes and Mechanisms Regulating them

Abstract

The idea of mimicking the structure of the protein metabolite cleaved by enzymes of the humoral defence systems has been very fruitful. Synthetic peptide substrates with a chromophore at the cleaved bond often prove to be more selective than the natural substrate. Chromogenic peptide substrates exist not only for most coagulation, fibrinolysis, kallikrein and complement enzymes but also for chymotrypsin-, elastase- and papain-type enzymes. Various venoms and cell enzymes also show high sensitivity towards certain peptide substrates. Using well-defined substrates and other reagents, it has often been easy to opimize assay conditions. In a few cases inhibitors have been used to improve specificity.