A highly sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography-- fluorometric method for the assay of peptidylarginine deiminase activity

The activity of peptidylarginine deiminase (PAD) has generally been assayed by a colorimetric method using N-benzoyl-L-arginine ethyl ester (BAEE) and N-benzoyl-L-arginine (Bz-L-Arg) as the substrates. The widespread occurrence of citrulline and urea in tissues makes use of this method difficult, especially for small samples. We developed a highly sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography method with N-dansyl-glycyl-L-arginine as the substrate. This method was sensitive enough to determine previously undetectable activity of PAD in HL-60 cells. Two types of PAD (HL-60 cell and brain PAD) could be distinguished by differential competition, using either BAEE or Bz-L-Arg as a preferential substrate in the assay. These data indicate that the present method is applicable to many tissues.