Patent ID: 6849421

Claim:
A method of identifying compounds that inhibit serine protease C-E activity, comprising: (a) conducting a test assay wherein a test compound, a serine protease C-E comprising a catalytic domain amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:8, and a labeled substrate are combined and the rate of reaction is measured; (b) conducting a control assay wherein a serine protease C-E comprising a catalytic domain amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:8 and a labeled substrate are combined and the rate of reaction is measured; and, (c) comparing the rates of the reaction with the labeled substrate in steps (a) and (b) to detect a decrease of rate of reaction in step (a) relative to step (b) which indicates that the test compound is an inhibitor of said serine protease; whereby an inhibitory compound is identified.