Purification of a novel, heat-stable serine protease inhibitor protein from ovaries of the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria

A protease-inhibitor was isolated from mature ovaries of Schistocerca gregaria by a combination of trypsin-affinity chromatography and reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography. It was characterized by aminoterminal amino acid sequencing using Edman degradation based automated microsequencing and by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. The N-terminal sequence (Y)XAEXDELA(A)EEY(Y)Q(Q)X(I)(L)M (X being a Cys, an irregular or modified amino acid) revealed no similarities with any other protease inhibitors isolated from invertebrate or vertebrate source. The 14 kDa inhibitor was found to be heat-stable. It shows potent inhibitory activity toward bovine trypsin and chymotrypsin, but not toward pancreatic elastase. It is likely that the characterized inhibitor will serve as an important tool for understanding its role in insect development.