Dispase Explained

Dispase is a protease which cleaves fibronectin, collagen IV, and to a lesser extent collagen I. It is found in some bacteria and can be isolated from culture filtrates of Bacillus polymyxa. It can be extracted, purified, and used in research. It can be particularly useful to separate embryonic epithelia and mesenchyme. Dispase II is specific for the cleavage of leucine-phenylalanine bonds.

Dispase is often used to digest adhering primary cells in culture, since this treatment turned out to be milder than trypsin digestion (Sinclair et al., 2013).

A recent article also finds that dispase can digest serine-phenylalanine.^[1]

Dispase intravitreal injection can be used in the modeling of proliferative vitreoretinopathy in different animals.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Notes and References

1. Weimer . et al . 2006 . A quenched fluorescent dipeptide for assaying dispase- and thermolysin-like proteases. Analytical Biochemistry . 352 . 1. 110–119 . 10.1016/j.ab.2006.02.029. 16564490 .
2. Erdiakov AK, Tikhonovich MV, Rzhavina EM, Gavrilova SA . 26263683 . THE CHARACTERISTICS OF RETINA AT THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROLIFERATIVE VITREORETINOPATHY IN RATS AFTER INTRAOCULAR INJECTION OF CONCANAVALIN A AND DISPASE . Ross Fiziol Zh Im I M Sechenova . May 2015 . 101 . 5 . 572–85.
3. Cantó Soler MV, Gallo JE, Dodds RA, Suburo AM . 12457862 . A mouse model of proliferative vitreoretinopathy induced by dispase . Exp Eye Res . November 2002 . 75 . 5 . 491–504.
4. Tikhonovich. Marina V.. Erdiakov. Aleksei K.. Gavrilova. Svetlana A.. 2017-06-21. Nonsteroid anti-inflammatory therapy suppresses the development of proliferative vitreoretinopathy more effectively than a steroid one. International Ophthalmology. 38. 4. en. 1365–1378. 10.1007/s10792-017-0594-3. 28639085. 0165-5701.