Degradation of the epidermal-dermal junction by proteolytic enzymes from human skin and human polymorphonuclear leukocytes.

The human skin chymotrypsin-like proteinase, which may be the human analogue to this proteinase, did not appear to degrade basement membrane collagen; the lamina densa remained intact even after 8-h incubations, and the presence of type IV collagen was documented by immunofluorescence. This suggests that there may be significant differences in the proteolytic suscep- tibility of isolated basement membrane proteins as compared with the same proteins in their native environments.

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