Assessment of the spectrophotometric method for determination of angiotensin-converting-enzyme activity: influence of the inhibition type.

A set of in vitro assay conditions were selected for the determination of ACE-inhibitory activity, and the need was demonstrated to standardize this assay so that the results obtained by different authors may be comparable. The conditions selected were as follows: 10 mM HHL concentration in 0.2 M potassium phosphate buffer and 0.3 M NaCl and 26 mU of ACE/mL as reaction medium; incubation time, 80 min at 37 degrees C. The method was applied to the study of ACE-inhibitory activity of dairy product and wine samples. Of the samples assayed, it was infant formulae whey that produces the greatest ACE inhibition. Red wine also presents a high inhibition percentage. This latter sample has an important matrix effect that must be corrected in the calculation. ACE-inhibition type was also studied, using a yogurt whey and a Captropil solution as substrates. The whey produced noncompetitive inhibition and the Captropil competitive inhibition.