Comparison of the interactions of soya bean protease inhibitors with rat pancreatic enzymes and human trypsin.

The present work describes the effect of two soya bean protease inhibitors: Kunitz type (SBTI) and Bowman-Birk type (BBTI) on rat trypsin I (TrI), trypsin II (TrII) and chymotrypsin (Chtr) and on human cationic trypsin (hTr). The inhibition spectra show that: (1) SBTI inhibits TrI, TrII, Chtr and hTr esterase activities by 80, 80, 83 and 45%, respectively, at inhibitor-to-enzyme molar ratios of one-to-one, and (2) BBTI inhibits TrI, TrII, Chtr, and hTr esterase activities by 50, 65, 75 and 30%, respectively, at an inhibitor-to-enzyme molar ratio of two-to-one. A similar inhibition pattern was obtained by testing proteolytic activities. It would appear that hTr is less sensitive to soya bean protease inhibitors than each of the rat proteases investigated. This difference in inhibition should be considered when a rat is used as a model to predict the effects of dietary soya bean protease inhibitors on humans.