[The specificity and sensitivity of the gelatin base protease substrate film test ]

Highly sensitive gelatin substrate films prepared according to a recent variant of the procedure are studied for their susceptibility to the action of various endopeptidases and exopeptidases. Trypsin, papain, elastase, and chymotrypsin are found to hydrolyze the gelatin films most easily, while higher enzyme concentrations are required in case of pepsin, plasmin and collagenase. The exopeptidases, i.e. leucine aminopeptidase, amino acid arylamidase and carboxypeptidases A and B do not cause lysis of gelatin substrate films. The example of a rabbit blastocyst protease involved in implantation is given to demonstrate the application of gelatin substrate film tests for studies of enzymes which have no or little activity against known synthetic substrates (like BANA or GPNA) but hydrolyze gelatin films. Studies of interactions of this blastocyst protease with various inhibitors of known specificity, however, show that the active center of this enzyme nevertheless has striking similarities to trypsin (and also to chymotrypsin). The enzyme is possibly related to elastase. It is emphasized that, besides this, there are a number of different protease type enzymes in rabbit blastocyst and uterine tissues, some of which can be demonstrated only with chromogenic substrates and some only by gelatin methods. Aspects of applicability of the two types of protease tests are briefly discussed.