A strategy to profile prime and non-prime proteolytic substrate specificity.

A strategy was developed to determine the prime and non-prime substrate specificity of serine, threonine and cysteine proteases. ACC positional scanning technology was employed to determine the P4-P1 non-prime site substrate specificity. The data was used to synthesize biased donor-quencher positional scanning libraries to profile the P1'-P4' prime site substrate specificity. Directed sorting using the Irori Nanokan system allowed for the archiving of multiple P1'-P4' positional scanning libraries. From these libraries focused donor-quencher libraries incorporating P4-P1 data for each protease under study could be rapidly prepared. The profiling of thrombin and caspase-3 P4-P4' substrate specificity, comparison of the library specificity data to single substrates, and the analysis of physiological cleavage sites are described.