Assay of Arginine-Esterase Activities by Reversed Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

Application of a high performance liquid chromato-graphic technique to assay of arginine-esterase activities is presented. Enzyme reaction was carried out with benzoyl-L-arginine ethylester as a substrate and analysis was performed on a reversed phase chromato-graphic system using a μ Bondapak C₁₈ or a Radial-PAK A column and buffered aqueous methanol as the mobile phase. The enzyme activities were determined by the peak height of cleaved product (benzoyl-L-arginine). The minimum detection limit for benzoyl-L-arginine was 0.02 nM on each column. The generality of this method was demonstrated by its application to determination of plasmin activity, and so it might be suitable for both kinetic studies and routine assays of plasmin-like es-terases.