Abstract
Cysteine proteases play multiple roles in basically all aspects of physiology and development. In plants, they are involved in growth and development and in accumulation and mobilization of storage proteins. Furthermore, they are engaged in signalling pathways and in the response to biotic and abiotic stresses. In animals and also in humans, they are responsible for senescence and apoptosis, prohormone processing, and ECM remodelling. When analyzed by zymography, the enzyme must be renaturated after SDS-PAGE. SDS must be washed out and substituted by Triton X-100. Gels are then further incubated under ideal conditions for activity detection. Cysteine proteases require an acidic pH (5.0–6.0) and a reducing agent, usually DTT. When screening biological samples, there is generally no previous clue on what peptidase class will be present, neither optimal proteolysis conditions are known. Hence, it is necessary to assess several parameters, such as incubation time, pH, temperature, influence of ions or reducing agents, and finally evaluate the inhibition profile. For detection of cysteine peptidase activity, the use of specific inhibitors, such as E-64, can be used to prevent the development of cysteine peptidase activity bands and positively confirm its presence. Here four different protocols to assess cysteine protease activity from different sources are presented.
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Acknowledgments
The author thanks Dr. Rebeca Giamate and Dr. Liliana Kurz from the University of Carabobo for technical and emotional support during the writing and editing of this chapter.
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Wilkesman, J. (2017). Cysteine Protease Zymography: Brief Review. In: Wilkesman, J., Kurz, L. (eds) Zymography. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1626. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7111-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7111-4_3
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