• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.48-54
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• 1989

Several proteolytic activities and the level of and-trypsin in neoplastic tissues of human cervix and liver were compared to those in normal tissues to examine if any correlation exists between malignant behavior of the tumors and the changes in overall proteolytic capacity. Proteolysis against casein and insulin in cervix tumor was increased to 2-to 3-fold while that in liver tumor was reduced to one-tenth to one-half. By contrast, the level of anti-trypsin in cervix tumor was lowered to nearly one-tenth of that in normal tissues while the level rose to about 2-fold in malignant tissues of liver. On the other hand, the activities of plasmin-like protease and plasminogen activator were enhanced 10-20% over the activities in normals. These results suggest that the changes in proteolytic capacity are at least in part due to outbalance in either of proteolytic or its inhibitory activity over the other and occur distinctively to each tumor systems for their malignant behavior.