STUDIES OF ENZYMES AS POSSIBLE FACTORS IN 

 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EDEMA 



3. Is experimental edema in recently excised tissues attended 



by protein hydrolysis? 



EDGAR G. MILLER, JR. and WILLIAM J. GIES 



(Laboratory of Biological Chemistry of Columbia University, at the College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons, New York) 



Introduction. The data in the preceding paper^ show that 

 small proportions o£ certain proteases induced marked relative in- 

 crease in the bulkiness of typical protein masses immersed in 

 various acid and alkalin media. This phenomenon appears to have 

 been brought about by a superficial fixation of water prior to and 

 as a Step in the direction of hydrolytic deavage. The results of the 

 same experiments show, also, that comparatively large proportions 

 of proteases in similar alkalin or acid media induced not only 

 preliminary increases in the size of some of the protein masses but 

 also siibsequent relative dimimitions of bulk. In such cases the swell- 

 ing masses were evidently subjected to rapid hydrolytic cleavage, 

 with continuous elision of small and more soluble parts that held, 

 by molecular incorporation, various proportions of the water which 

 at first was superficially combined. "The absorption of water by 

 protoplasm may be influenced to a marked extent by hydrolases," 

 and natural edema may result from, or its development may be 

 modified by, special enzymic fixation of water on tissue colloids, as 

 Tracy and Gies conclude.^ Nevertheless, the observations of Tracy 

 and Gies also suggest the possibility that special enzymic fixation of 

 water in protoplasm might he accompanied there by commensurate 

 encymic hydrolytic cleavage, normally as well as abnormally, and 

 that, therefore, natural edema might never be caused or influenced 

 by hydrolases.^ 



^ Tracy and Gies : Biochemical Bulletin, 1912, i, p. 467. 

 * For the present we ignore the possibility that enzymes, under such circum- 

 stances, might increase the total afEnity of a part for water by producing in it 



475 



