cruzi infections. Results T. cruzi enzyme extract mediates hydrolysis of the aminopeptidase substrate Deltarasin? Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries Leu AMC The sequencing of T. cruzi genome revealed genes cod ing for putative peptidases that mediate aminopeptidoly tic activities. To identify such activities in T. cruzi, we prepared enzyme extract from epimastigoste forms of the parasite and incubated it with Leu AMC, N CBZ Leu AMC, Pro AMC or Asp AMC. Under these experimental con ditions, only Leu AMC was hydrolyzed by the enzyme extract from epimastigotes, with a calculated specific enzymatic activity of 45. 86 3. 75 mU mg of protein. The values of specific enzymatic activity obtained with enzyme extracts prepared from trypomastigotes and amastigotes were 30. 56 3. 00 and 56. 46 4. 62 mU mg of protein, respectively.

These results may suggest that this enzymatic activity is differentially regulated in the parasitic forms. Since the enzyme extract failed Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries to hydrolyze N CBZ Leu AMC, the hydrolysis of Leu AMC may be mediated by a leucyl aminopeptidase. The molecular mass of the enzyme displaying such activity was esti mated by gel enzymography. For this assay, the proteins present in the enzyme extract were separated by SDS PAGE, followed by gel washing for enzymatic activity recovery and incubation in reaction buffer containing Leu AMC. A single fluorescent band just above 200 kDa molecular mass was revealed which corresponded to free AMC released upon hydrolysis of the substrate. The enzymatic activity on Leu AMC was observed to co localize with a protein band upon staining of the same gel.

Leucyl aminopeptidase is assembled Drug_discovery into a homo oligomer The enzyme mediating hydrolysis of Leu AMC was pur ified to homogeneity from freshly Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries prepared enzyme extract by a combination of ion exchange Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries and size exclusion chromatography with final yield and purifica tion factor of 65 and 42%, respectively. The leucyl ami nopeptidase activity was eluted from a DEAE Sepharose column sellekchem from 0. 54 to 0. 63 M NaCl as a single peak of activity. The active fractions were further purified on a Superose 6 HR column, again a single 300 kDa peak of enzymatic activity was observed, which indicates that, under the conditions of this experi ment, only one peptidase in the enzyme extract pre pared from T. cruzi epimastigotes displays hydrolysis of Leu AMC. The lack of hydrolysis of fluorogenic pro tease substrates such as Pro AMC, Asp AMC, N CBZ Leu AMC, Gly Phe AMC, Gly Arg AMC, and Gly Pro AMC, as well as the protein substrates bovine serum albumin, immunoglobulin G and gelatin suggests that the purified aminopeptidase displays nar row spectrum activity. The electrophoretic profiles of enzymatic active frac tions on Leu AMC obtained at each purification step are shown in Figure 1A.