Calf chymosin as a catalyst of peptide synthesis.

Calf chymosin was shown to catalyse peptide synthesis optimally over the range pH 4-5, giving satisfactory yields of methyl esters or p-nitroanilides of benzyloxycarbonyl tetra- to hexa-peptides, provided that hydrophobic amino-acid residues form the new peptide bonds. The effectiveness of the enzyme depends also on the nature of adjacent amino-acid residues. As an aspartate-proteinase with a characteristic specificity pattern chymosin would be useful for the synthesis of middle-length peptides.