[Modification of swine pepsin and pepsinogen by p-nitrophenyldiazonium chloride]

It was found that at pH 5.2 and 40-fold excess of p-nitrophenyldiazonium chloride the inhibitor incorporation into the porcine pepsin molecule involves 1.9 residues, one residue being bound to tyrosine 189. Besides, tyrosines 44, 113, 154 and 174 enter the reaction. Modified pepsin retains 25% of the native enzyme activity. In the pepsinogen molecule the degree of tyrosine 189 modification diminishes 5 times; of 1.5 inhibitor molecules incorporated into the protein 0.78 residues are bound to tyrosine 113. The potential proteolytic activity of modified pepsinogen towards haemoglobin cleavage makes up to 60% of the original one. It is concluded that the activation peptide in the pepsinogen molecule masks the substrate binding site bearing tyrosine 189, thus preventing its modification with p-nitrophenyldiazonium chloride. The activation peptide in the pepsinogen molecule is presumably located in the vicinity of the wide loop bend carrying tyrosine residue 113, which may be the reason for the decreased pKa value of this residue and of its increased reactivity in the azocoupling reaction.