The cleavage of pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator by stromelysin-1

Membrane binding of urokinase type plasminogen activator (u-PA) is thought to play a pivotal role in connective tissue remodeling and invasive processes. We compare the ability of different matrix-metalloproteinases involved in connective tissue turnover to cleave pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator between the catalytic domain and the receptor binding part to investigate a potential role for matrix-metalloproteinases in the regulation of membrane-associated proteolytic activity. We employed several forms of human stromelysin-1 (full length, C-truncated, and recombinant catalytic domain), rabbit C-truncated stromelysin-1, the human gelatinases A and B and the human catalytic domain of neutrophil collagenase. The gelatinases and the collagenase did not separate the receptor binding domain of pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator from the catalytic domain, whereas all stromelysin-1 forms cleaved the glutamic acid 143-leucine 144 bond of pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator. This reaction could be inhibited by specific inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinases and was not affected by inhibitors of serine proteinases. The M(r) 31000 cleavage product with leucine 144 as N-terminus displayed no proteolytic activity towards the pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator substrate pyroGlu-Gly-Arg-pNA-HCI (S2444), but it could be activated by an additional treatment with plasmin. Comparison between full length stromelysin-1 and its C-truncated forms, showed that both exhibited the same cleavage properties towards pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator. Thus, the cleavage of pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator by stromelysin-1 is not influenced by the presence or absence of the C-terminal domain. The recombinant catalytic domain of MMP-3 generated pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator, whereas incubation of pro-urokinase type plasminogen activator with the native forms of human or rabbit stromelysin-1 led to a moderate activation of pro-uPA due to an additional cleavage that is catalyzed by a serine proteinase.