Cellular location and some properties of proteolytic enzymes of rumen bacteria.

Several physical and chemical techniques were used to extract, and to identify the location of, proteolytic enzymes associated with mixed rumen bacteria. Most activity was removable by gentle physical methods such as shaking and brief blending, without cell disruption, indicating that it was associated with coat and capsular material. Proteases were present also in the cell envelope, corresponding to the inner membrane fraction of gram-negative bacteria, and intracellularly and were removable by detergent and French press treatment. Temperature and pH profiles were obtained for the coat enzymes, likely to be the most important in the digestion of food protein. Inhibition studies indicated that these proteases, and those of the whole bacterial fraction from rumen fluid, were predominantly of the cysteine protease type.