Summary
Chromogenic substrates for thrombin with high specificity are necessary for several
functional assays, especially for the performance of photometric PT and APTT. A new
approach to improve the specificity of chromogenic peptide substrates is made coupling
tripeptide sequences selective for thrombin to derivatives of 5-amino-2-nitro benzoic
acid (ANBA). Especially when the chromophore’s side chain is substituted by amines
or amino acids hydrolysis rates by other enzymes like kallikrein, plasmin or factor
Xa are decreased significantly compared to corresponding para-nitroanilides of the
same amino acid sequence. On the other hand, most of these compounds are still sensitive
thrombin substrates. KM-values for thrombin and other enzymes are in the same order of magnitude as corresponding
pNA-peptides. ANBA peptide substrates may be useful to measure thrombin selectively
in a mixture of other proteases like plasmin, factor Xa or kallikrein and for the
colorimetric determination of PT and APTT.
Key words
Coagulation - Thrombin - Chromogenic peptide substrates