Bovine proenteropeptidase is activated by trypsin, and the specificity of enteropeptidase depends on the heavy chain.

Enteropeptidase, also known as enterokinase, initiates the activation of pancreatic hydrolases by cleaving and activating trypsinogen. Enteropeptidase is synthesized as a single-chain protein, whereas purified enteropeptidase contains a approximately 47-kDa serine protease domain (light chain) and a disulfide-linked approximately 120-kDa heavy chain. The heavy chain contains an amino-terminal membrane-spanning segment and several repeated structural motifs of unknown function. To study the role of heavy chain motifs in substrate recognition, secreted variants of recombinant bovine proenteropeptidase were constructed by replacing the transmembrane domain with a signal peptide. Secreted variants containing both the heavy chain (minus the transmembrane domain) and the catalytic light chain (pro-HL-BEK (where BEK is bovine enteropeptidase)) or only the catalytic domain (pro-L-BEK) were expressed in baby hamster kidney cells and purified. Single-chain pro-HL-BEK and pro-L-BEK were zymogens with extremely low catalytic activity, and both were activated readily by trypsin cleavage. Trypsinogen was activated efficiently by purified enteropeptidase from bovine intestine (Km = 5.6 microM and kcat = 4.0 s-1) and by HL-BEK (Km = 5.6 microM and kcat = 2.2 s-1), but not by L-BEK (Km = 133 microM and kcat = 0.1 s-1); HL-BEK cleaved trypsinogen at pH 5.6 with 520-fold greater catalytic efficiency than did L-BEK. Qualitatively similar results were obtained at pH 8.4. In contrast to this striking difference in trypsinogen recognition, the small synthetic substrate Gly-Asp-Asp-Asp-Asp-Lys-beta-naphthylamide was cleaved with similar kinetic parameters by both HL-BEK (Km = 0.27 mM and kcat = 0.07 s-1) and L-BEK (Km = 0.60 mM and kcat = 0.06 s-1). The presence of the heavy chain also influenced the rate of reaction with protease inhibitors. Bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor preferred HL-BEK (initial Ki = 99 nM and final Ki* = 1.8 nM) over L-BEK (Ki = 698 nM and Ki* = 6.2 nM). Soybean trypsin inhibitor exhibited a reciprocal pattern, inhibiting L-BEK (Ki* = 1.6 nM), but not HL-BEK. These kinetic data indicate that the enteropeptidase heavy chain has little influence on the recognition of small peptides, but strongly influences macromolecular substrate recognition and inhibitor specificity.