Preparation and preliminary characterization of poly(ethylene glycol)-pepstatin conjugate

The carboxyl function of pepstatin has been coupled, through an amide bond, to methoxypoly(ethylene glycol) (5 kDa), to which an amino function had been previously grafted. The mPEG-pepstatin conjugate inhibits hog pepsin (aspartic proteinase) in vitro as pepstatin itself, however, with a 400 times higher apparent Ki. The conjugate apparently does not inhibit proteinases belonging to other proteinase families such as serine (trypsin, carboxypeptidase Y), cysteine (Papaya proteinase III), or metallo (collagenase) proteinases.