Research on the Proteolytic Enzymes in Fungi 
and Bacteria. 
ise 4 
ROBERT M. WILSON, B.Sc., 
CARNEGIE SCHOLAR. 
THE presence of proteolytic enzymatic activity has been 
demonstrated in members of practically all the groups of the 
plant kingdom by several investigators, among them :— 
Wurtz and Bochut, who discovered a trypsin-like ferment 
in Carica papaya. 
Tommasoli and Dacommo, who found a proteolytic enzyme 
in Anagallis arvensis. 
Markano, who isolated the ferment bromelin from Ananas. 
Goroup Besanez, who found pepsin in the germinating seeds 
of Vicia, Cannabis sativa, Linum usitatissimum. 
Green, who isolated from the germinating seeds of Ricinus 
a trypsin-like ferment, which had the power of converting 
albumin and globulin into peptone and asparagin. 
For the first definite knowledge of proteolytic enzymatic 
activity in bacteria, however, we are indebted to Bitter, who 
in 1887 isolated from cultures of Vibrio cholere-asiatice and 
Vibrio Finkler-Prior, a ferment which was capable of dissolving 
gelatine and fibrin. 
The fundamental work in connection with the activities of 
proteolytic enzymes is that of Fermi, who, in his various experi- 
ments with members of the higher and lower forms of plant life, 
gives many instances of proteolysis. 
These results and those obtained by other observers, com- 
bined with the general indications of the almost universal 
occurrence and activity of proteolytic enzymes throughout 
animal and vegetable life, would seem to render a systematic 
search for such enzymes amongst fungi and bacteria desirable, 
in order to ascertain, if their presence may be regarded as essential 
to fungoid and bacterial life, the functions they have in con- 
nection with such life, and the manner in which, as well as the 
conditions under which, these are carried out. 
I have been fortunate enough to obtain a Carnegie Scholarship 
for the purpose of a research in this direction, and have been 
[Notes R.B.G., Edin., No. XXI, August 1909.] 
