Human lung angiotensin converting enzyme. Purification and antibody preparation.

To enable its immunohistologic localization, angiotensin converting enzyme (EC 3.4.15.1) from human lung was solubilized by trypsinization and purified approximately 2,660-fold to apparent homogeneity from a washed lung particulate fraction. The specific activity of pure enzyme was estimated to be 117 mumol/min per mg protein with the substrate hippuryl-l-histidyl-l-leucine. Consistent with previously described lung enzyme studies, catalytic activity was strongly inhibited by EDTA, O-phenanthroline, SQ 20,881, and SQ 14,225 and increased by CoCl(2). SQ 20,881 was a somewhat more potent inhibitor than SQ 14,225, unlike rabbit lung enzyme. The Michaelis constant (K(m)) with hippuryl-l-histidyl-l-leucine was 1.6 mM. The molecular weight was estimated at 150,000 from sucrose density gradient centrifugation. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed a single polypeptide chain estimated at 130,000 daltons. Rabbit antibody to human lung enzyme was prepared by parenteral administration of pure angiotensin-converting enzyme in Freund's adjuvant. Rabbit antibody to human lung angiotensin-converting enzyme appeared to crossreact weakly with the rabbit enzyme and strongly inhibited the catalytic activity of the enzymes from human serum, lung, and lymph node. The specificity of the rabbit antibody and purity of the final human lung enzyme preparation was suggested by the single precipitin lines obtained by radial double immunodiffusion, and by the coincidence of enzyme catalytic activity and immunoreactivity on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, with both relatively pure and highly impure enzymes. Generally applicable sensitive analysis of acrylamide gels for immunoreactivity (and subsequently for any other activity) by use of intact gel slices in radial double immunodiffusion was devised. Human lung enzyme was very tightly bound to and catalytically active on anti-human enzyme antibody covalently bound to Sepharose 4B, and could not be readily dissociated without inactivation. Antibody to human lung angiotensin converting enzyme has permitted tissue localization of the enzyme, which appears to be clinically useful in diseases associated with abnormal abundance of angiotensin-converting enzyme in tissues, such as sarcoidosis.