Purification and characterization of a trypsin-like protein from rat pancreas

The purification of the latent form of a rat pancreas trypsin-like protein was performed by ion-exchange and hydrophobic chromatographies. After partial activation, the affinity on immobilized soybean trypsin inhibitor allowed the isolation of an active and an inactive form. They had 30,000 and 32,000 molecular weight, respectively, as checked by polyacrylamide slab gel electrophoresis. Active enzyme (named TLP) was not glycosylated and had an isoelectric point of 4.4. The rate of hydrolysis of different substrates and the effects of various proteinase inhibitors indicated clearly that TLP differs from proteinases previously described and belongs to the trypsin family.