[Purification and some physico-chemical and enzymatic properties of tissue kallikrein from human urine].

A procedure for obtaining tissue kallikrein (EC 3.4.21.35) from large specimens of human urea (100 l) has been developed. The isolation procedure included primary extraction of the protein with chitosan (a crustacean chitin deacylated by alkaline treatment), desorption from chitosan with 1 M NH3, affinity chromatography on contrical-Sepharose, ion-exchange chromatography on DEAE-Sepharose and gel filtration on Sephadex G-100. This method permits to obtain tissue kallikrein preparations purified 1080-fold (with respect to AcPheArg-OEt esterase) and 1360-fold (with respect to kininogenase) with 33 and 40% yields, respectively. Tissue kallikrein preparations were homogeneous as could be judged from the results of electrophoresis performed in 12% PAAG in the presence of 0.1% SDS as well as from the presence of one N-terminal amino acid identified as isoleucine. Purified tissue kallikrein had specific activities of 133 mumol/min/mg protein (with respect to AcPheArg-OEt hydrolysis) and 8.8 mumol/min/mg protein (with respect to D-Val-Leu-Arg-pNa hydrolysis) and liberated 462 micrograms equiv. of bradykinin/min/mg protein from heated human blood plasma used as a kininogen source. The protein exhibited the highest stability at pH 8.0-9.0; the pH optimum is at pH 8.0 with AcPheArg-OMe as substrate. The enzyme revealed a high thermostability and was fully inactivated only after 1-hour heating in a boiling water bath. The identity of the urine enzyme to tissue kallikrein could be confirmed by the resistance of the enzyme activity to SIT, high sensitivity to the inhibiting effect of aprotinin (Ki = 0.94 x 10(-10) M) and by an exceedingly low value of the second order inhibition constant for DPP (4.6 M-1 min-1). The fact that this value differs drastically from that for human blood plasma kallikrein (EC 3.4.21.34) which is equal to 360 M-1 min-1 points to marked differences in the structure of the active centers of the both kallikreins as well as to the uniqueness of the tissue kallikrein active center.