A number of complex processes are involved in Eimeria spp. survival, including control of sporulation, intracellular invasion, evasion of host immune responses, successful reproduction, and nutrition. Proteases have been implicated in many of these processes, but the occurrence and functions of serine proteases have not been characterized. Bioinformatic analysis suggests that the Eimeria tenell...

A 1.7-kb EcoRI fragment containing the structural gene for alpha-lytic protease has been cloned from Lysobacter enzymogenes 495 chromosomal DNA: the first example of a gene cloned from this organism. The protein sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence encoding this serine protease matches the published amino acid sequence [Olson et al., Nature 228 (1970) 438-442] precisely. Sequence analy...

Site-specific proteases are important tools for in vitro and in vivo cleavage of proteins. They are widely used for diverse applications, like protein purification, assessment of protein-protein interactions or regulation of protein localization, abundance or activity. Here, we report the development of a procedure to select protease variants with altered specificity based on the well-establish...

The purpose of this study was to determine the occurrence and nature of immunoglobulin A1 (IgA1) protease activity in members of the genus Gemella and related taxa. Among a total of 22 Gemella strains belonging to the four species Gemella haemolysans, Gemella morbillorum, Gemella sanguinis, and Gemella bergeriae and four reference strains of the species Helcococcus kunzii, Facklamia hominis, an...

Halophilic microorganisms are recognized as potential source of secondary metabolites including enzymes and drugs with wide agricultural and industrial applications. In the present study protease producing halotolerant bacterium Bacillus licheniformis HSW-16 was isolated from hypersaline Sambhar lake, Rajasthan India. Protease production was performed by using azocasein as substrate. Confirmati...

Proteases constitute a major class of drug targets. Endosomal compartments harbor several protease families whose attenuation may be beneficial to a number of biological processes, including inflammation, cancer metastasis, antigen presentation, and parasite clearance. As a step toward the goal of generalized but targeted protease inhibition in the endocytic pathway, we describe here the synthe...

The rhomboid-like proteins constitute a large family of intramembrane serine proteases that are present in all branches of life. First studied in Drosophila, these enzymes catalyse the release of the active forms of proteins from the membrane and hence trigger signalling events. In protozoan parasites, a limited number of rhomboid-like proteases have been investigated and some of them are assoc...

Several series of site-directed mutations in thermolysin-like proteases are presented that show remarkable nonadditivity in their effect on thermal stability. A simple model is proposed that relates this nonadditivity to the occurrence of independent partial unfolding processes that occur in parallel at elevated temperatures. To prove this model, a thermolysin-like protease was designed in whic...

Pestiviruses are the only members of the Flaviviridae that encode a nonstructural protease at the N terminus of their polyproteins. This N-terminal protease (Npro) cleaves itself off of the nascent polyprotein autocatalytically and thereby generates the N terminus of the adjacent viral capsid protein C. In previous reports, sequence similarities between Npro and the catalytic residues of papain...

We investigated the effect of elastase-like neutral protease isolated from human granolocytes on human fibrinogen. Dependent on enzyme concentration and time of incubation, the elastase-like protease induced a progressive degradation of fibrinogen. Analysis of the remaining polypeptide chains showed a high susceptibility of the Aalpha- and low susceptibility of the gamma-chain of fibrinogen tow...