AN ALGORITHM TO ANALYZE THE HYDROLYSIS PATHWAY OF PEPTIDES AND PROTEINS BY SEQUENCE ANALYSES OF UNFRACTIONATED DIGESTION MIXTURES

We have designed and implemented on a personal computer a program for identifying and quantifying the fragments present in a peptide mixture obtained by hydrolysing a polypeptide of known sequence using digesti ng agents. The qualitative data utilized by the main algorithm consist of the target sequence of the intact molecule and the amino acid resi dues identified at each step of the automatic sequence analysis of the unfractionated digestion mixture. In this way, the sequence of each f ragment present in the mixture is quickly reconstructed Furthermore, i f the quantitative data of the amino acid residues identified at each step of the sequence analysis are utilized, the program will correlate the sequence of each fragment to its amount. We furnish an example of the application intended for the vapid identification and characteriz ation of the extracellular proteinases produced by a basidiomycete fun gus, utilizing the bovine insulin beta-chain as target substrate. A va riety of uses for the method ave discussed.