Elastases form a subfamily of serine proteases that hydrolyze many proteins in addition to elastin. Humans have six elastase genes which encode the structurally similar proteins elastase 1, 2, 2A, 2B, 3A, and 3B. Like most of the human elastases, elastase 2A is secreted from the pancreas as a zymogen. In other species, elastase 2A has been shown to preferentially cleave proteins after leucine, methionine, and phenylalanine residues. Clinical literature that describes human elastase 1 activity in the pancreas is actually referring to elastase 2A.[3]
References
↑Kawashima I, Tani T, Shimoda K, Takiguchi Y (Jul 1987). "Characterization of pancreatic elastase II cDNAs: two elastase II mRNAs are expressed in human pancreas". DNA. 6 (2): 163–72. doi:10.1089/dna.1987.6.163. PMID3646943.
↑Shirasu Y, Yoshida H, Matsuki S, Takemura K, Ikeda N, Shimada Y, Ozawa T, Mikayama T, Iijima H, Ishida A, et al. (Jun 1988). "Molecular cloning and expression in Escherichia coli of a cDNA encoding human pancreatic elastase 2". J Biochem. 102 (6): 1555–63. PMID2834346.
Moulard M, Michon T, Kerfelec B, Chapus C (1990). "Further studies on the human pancreatic binary complexes involving procarboxypeptidase A.". FEBS Lett. 261 (1): 179–83. doi:10.1016/0014-5793(90)80665-6. PMID2307232.
Fletcher TS, Shen WF, Largman C (1988). "Primary structure of human pancreatic elastase 2 determined by sequence analysis of the cloned mRNA". Biochemistry. 26 (23): 7256–61. doi:10.1021/bi00397a010. PMID3427074.
Ota T, Suzuki Y, Nishikawa T, et al. (2004). "Complete sequencing and characterization of 21,243 full-length human cDNAs". Nat. Genet. 36 (1): 40–5. doi:10.1038/ng1285. PMID14702039.
Lausen J, Liu S, Fliegauf M, et al. (2006). "ELA2 is regulated by hematopoietic transcription factors, but not repressed by AML1-ETO". Oncogene. 25 (9): 1349–57. doi:10.1038/sj.onc.1209181. PMID16247445.
Gregory SG, Barlow KF, McLay KE, et al. (2006). "The DNA sequence and biological annotation of human chromosome 1". Nature. 441 (7091): 315–21. doi:10.1038/nature04727. PMID16710414.