[Changes in skin enzyme activity in experimental burns]

Activities of proteolytic enzymes--cathepsins B and D, trypsin-like proteases, leucine aminopeptidase--as well as of lactate dehydrogenase and its isoenzymes were studied in area of thermic burns of skin and hypodermic tissue, in the zone surrounding the burns area and in intact skin of burned rats. Within a day after burns activities of the enzymes studied were distinctly decreased. The low levels of the activities were within the next three weeks. The activities of the proteolytic enzymes were gradually restored and exceeded the normal level in the tissues situated under crust, in boundary zone and in leukocytes of demarcational zone; the increase in activity appears to affect the subsequent deepening of burn wounds.