Development of Fibrinolytic Agents from Snake Venoms

Fibrinolytic proteases, piscivorase I (PI) and piscivorase II (PII), were isolated from Agkistrodon piscivorus piscivorus (eastern cotonmouth moccasin) venom using gel filtration on Bio-Gel P100 and ion-exchange chromatography on CM-Sepharose. The molecular welghts of two proteases were approximately 23400 and 29000. Their isoelectric points 6.6 and 8.5, respectively. The partial amino acid sequences of PI were characterized by tryptic digestion. PI readily cleaves the A${\alpha}$-and B${\beta}$-chaln of fibronogen, but PII rapidly cleaves A${\alpha}$-chain and more slowly the B${\beta}$-chain, They were activated by Ca$\^$2+/, Mg$\^$2+/ and Ba$\^$2+/, but inhibited by Zn$\^$2+/, Cu$\^$2+/ and Mn$\^$2+/. Two enzymes were also inhibited by cysten, ${\beta}$-mercapto -ethanol, and by metal chelators such as EDTA and EGTA, but not by benzamidine, PMSF, soybean trypsin inhibitor and aprotinin. They did not act like thrombin, plasmin and kallikrein, using specific chromogenllc substrates. Two protease did not induce platelet aggregation. PI showed low hemorrhagic activity at dosage of 50 $\mu\textrm{g}$.