Quantification of pepsin A activity in canine and rat gastric juice with the chromogenic substrate azocoll

The activity concentration of pepsin may be quantified by using azocoll as a chromogenic substrate. The measured enzyme activity is constant between pH 1.2 and 3.4 and is proportional (r = 0.61) to the activity measured with hemoglobin as substrate. The activity of purified porcine pepsin is inhibited by pepstatin A with an apparent Ki of 115 nmol/L. The azocoll method is useful for measuring changes in pepsin secretion in response to pharmacological agents. For example, pepsin activity of canine gastric juice is decreased by 80% after in vivo administration of 0.5 mg of the synthetic trimethyl prostanoid Ro 22-6923 per kilogram of body weight. The method is sufficiently sensitive to measure the pepsin activity in 0.2 microL of canine gastric juice with a CV of approximately 10%, is simpler than the hemoglobin-substrate methods, and the substrate is commercially available.