Studies of kallikrein-kinin systems since the 1930's have now led to substantial insight into the importance of this vasoactive system in the regulation of cardiovascular and renal function. It now seems clear that before long, these insights will lead to new therapeutic attacks upon diseases of the cardiovascular system and kidneys. This survey of notable recent work also emphasizes the fact t...

Kallikreins (KLKs) belong to the serine protease family of proteolytic enzymes. Human pancreatic/renal KLK (KLK1) encodes for an enzyme that is involved in posttranslational processing of polypeptide precursors. The function of the other members of this gene family is currently unknown, but growing evidence suggests that many KLKs are implicated in carcinogenesis. By using the positional candid...

}. KRAUT E . FREY E K . WF.RLE E . SCHULTZ F : Nachweis und Vorkommen des Kaltikreins im Harn. Hoppe Sevlers Z. Physiol 27. Cheni 230:259-277, 1934 4. WERI-E E , VOGEL R: Uber die Kallikreinausscheidung im Harn nach experimenleller Niererischadigung. Arch hit Pharmacodvn 28. 126:171-186. 1960 ^. OzA NB. LrEBERTHAi W. BERNARD DB, I.FVINSKY N G : Anlihody that recognizes total human urinary kalli...

A 33-kD glycoprotein, known as the "prostate-specific antigen," was purified to homogeneity from human seminal plasma. The prostatic protein was identified as a serine protease, and its NH2-terminal sequence strongly suggests that it belongs to the family of glandular kallikreins. The structural protein of human seminal coagulum, the predominant protein in seminal vesicle secretion, was rapidly...

Proteases perform important roles in multiple biological and pathological processes. The availability of the rat genome sequence has facilitated the analysis of the complete protease repertoire or degradome of this model organism. The rat degradome consists of at least 626 proteases and homologs, which are distributed into 24 aspartic, 160 cysteine, 192 metallo, 221 serine, and 29 threonine pro...

1. Normal human plasma contains a proactivator of inactive renin. The pro-activator is activated at physiological pH in plasma that has been pretreated with acid. This activation in vitro leads to the conversion of inactive renin into the active form with simultaneous generation of kallikrein activity. 2. The endogenous activator of inactive renin has the same pH profile and inhibitor spectrum ...