Interdependence of kallikrein-related peptidases in proteolytic networks.

Emerging clinical importance of the cancer biomarkers kallikrein-related peptidases (KLK) in female and male reproductive organ malignancies

BACKGROUND Tumor tissue-associated KLKs (kallikrein-related peptidases) are clinically important biomarkers that may allow prognosis of the cancer disease and/or prediction of response/failure of cancer patients to cancer-directed drugs. Regarding the female/male reproductive tract, remarkably, all of the fifteen KLKs are expressed in the normal prostate, breast, cervix uteri, and the testis, w...

Involvement of Kallikrein-Related Peptidases in Normal and Pathologic Processes

Human kallikrein-related peptidases (KLKs) are a subgroup of serine proteases that participate in proteolytic pathways and control protein levels in normal physiology as well as in several pathological conditions. Their complex network of stimulatory and inhibitory interactions may induce inflammatory and immune responses and contribute to the neoplastic phenotype through the regulation of seve...

Activation profiles of human kallikrein-related peptidases by matrix metalloproteinases.

The 15 human kallikrein-related peptidases (KLKs) are clinically important biomarkers and therapeutic targets of interest in inflammation, cancer, and neurodegenerative disease. KLKs are secreted as inactive pro-forms (pro-KLKs) that are activated extracellularly by specific proteolytic release of their amino-terminal pro-peptide, and this is a key step in their functional regulation. Physiolog...

The Kallikrein-Related Peptidases hK2 and PSA with Emphasis on Genetic Variation, Secretion, and Sperm Motility

Using kallikrein-related peptidases (KLK) as novel cancer biomarkers.

Thromb Haemost 2009; 101: 222–224 The scientist Emil-Karl Frey, a scholar of the famous surgeon ‘Geheimrat’ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, observed in 1925 a considerable reduction in arterial blood pressure when he injected human urine into dogs, an until then unknown cardioactive and vasoactive effect which he attributed to an unspecified substance with potential biological functions (1, 2). This then...