Identification of granzyme A isolated from cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-granules as one of the proteases encoded by CTL-specific genes.

A serine esterase called granzyme A, which is specifically expressed in cytolytic lymphocytes has been characterized. It is a disulfide-linked dimer and exhibits a trypsin-like specificity cleaving best after Arg. N-terminal sequence analysis revealed that granzyme A is identical to a protease recently predicted from a cloned CTL-specific gene.