抄録
In an investigation of the proteolytic activities in ten kinds of Japanese and Formosan snake venoms, it was found that proteinase activity is present only in venoms of the Crotalidae and that the venoms of the Elapidae do not contain appreciable proteinase activity. It is believed that the hydrolytic activities with the synthetic substrates, BAEE and ATEE, are present together with proteinase activity; however the enzyme responsible for esterolytic activity should be different enzyme from pro-teinase. A powerful hydrolytic activity against peptides is observed in venoms of Elapidae in contrast with the non-existence of proteinase activity in these venoms. B. multicinctus venom, in particular, has a very powerful peptidase activity.
The authors wish to express their gratitude to Dr. S. Sakakibara of the Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, and Dr. T. Mori of the Minophagen Pharmaceutical Co. for the kind supplies of peptides. Thanks are also due to Dr. S. Iwanaga, T. Omori, and T. Sato of this laboratory for their valuable help in this work. This work was supported, in part, by a grant for scientific researches from the Ministry of Education for “Enzymatic studies on animal toxins”, to which our thanks are due.
