Hallgren Jenny, Pejler Gunnar
Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Biomedical Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.
FEBS J. 2006 May;273(9):1871-95. doi: 10.1111/j.1742-4658.2006.05211.x.
In 1960, a trypsin-like activity was found in mast cells [Glenner GG & Cohen LA (1960) Nature 185, 846-847] and this activity is now commonly referred to as 'tryptase'. Over the years, much knowledge about mast cell tryptase has been gathered, and a recent (18 January 2006) PubMed search for the keywords 'tryptase + mast cell*' retrieved 1661 articles. However, still very little is known about its true biological function. For example, the true physiological substrate(s) for mast cell tryptase has not been identified, and the potential role of tryptase in mast cell-related disease is not understood. Mast cell tryptase has several unique features, with perhaps the most remarkable being its organization into a tetrameric state with all of the active sites oriented towards a narrow central pore and its consequent complete resistance towards endogenous macromolecular protease inhibitors. Much effort has been invested to elucidate these properties of tryptase. In this review we summarize the current knowledge of mast cell tryptase, including novel insights into its possible biological functions and mechanisms of regulation.
1960年，在肥大细胞中发现了一种类胰蛋白酶活性[格伦纳·G·G和科恩·L·A（1960年）《自然》185, 846 - 847]，这种活性现在通常被称为“类胰蛋白酶”。多年来，已经积累了许多关于肥大细胞类胰蛋白酶的知识，最近（2006年1月18日）在PubMed上以“类胰蛋白酶 + 肥大细胞*”为关键词进行搜索，检索到了1661篇文章。然而，对于其真正的生物学功能仍然知之甚少。例如，肥大细胞类胰蛋白酶真正的生理底物尚未确定，类胰蛋白酶在肥大细胞相关疾病中的潜在作用也不清楚。肥大细胞类胰蛋白酶有几个独特的特征，其中最显著的可能是它形成四聚体状态，所有活性位点都朝向一个狭窄的中心孔，因此它对内源性大分子蛋白酶抑制剂具有完全抗性。人们投入了大量精力来阐明类胰蛋白酶的这些特性。在这篇综述中，我们总结了目前关于肥大细胞类胰蛋白酶的知识，包括对其可能的生物学功能和调节机制的新见解。
