• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.289-300
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• 1997

Newborn dog chymosin was extracted from the stomachs of dogs of 2 weeks of age, and was purified by ion exchange chromatography. Half of the sequence was determined by amino acid sequencing and the complete sequence was deduced from a cloned chymosin cDNA Results showed that the zymogen showed 79% sequence identity with calf prochymosin and 54% identity with porcine pepsinogen A The size of the propart and location of the residue which becomes the amino-terminus in the active enzyme was the same in the prochymosins. The maximum general proteolytic activity at pH 3.2 of newborn dog chymosin was 3-4% of that of porcine pepsin A at pH 2, whereas the milk clotting activity relative to the general proteolytic activity of newborn dog chymosin was much higher than that of calf chymosin. Agar gel electrophoresis at pH 5.2 of stomach extracts of individual dogs showed the existence of two predominant genetic variants of zymogen and enzyme. The two variants could not be distinguished by amino acid composition or amino-terminal sequencing, and no differences in the enzymatic properties of the genetic variants were observed. It was concluded that of the residues that participate in the substrate binding, calf and newborn dog chymosin differ in the following positions (porcine pepsin numbering, subsites in parentheses) : Ser 12 Thr(S$_4$), Leu 30 Val(S$_1$/S$_3$), His 74 Gln(S'$_2$), Val 111 Ile(S$_1$/S$_3$), Lys 220 Met(S$_4$). With regard to the low general proteolytic activity of newborn dog chymosin, the substitution Asp303 Val relative to calf chymosin may contribute to an explanation of this.