Characterization of a Main Extracellular Matrix Autoenzyme from the Dermis of Sea Cucumber Stichopus monotuberculatus: Collagenase

Sea cucumber is easy to undergo autolysis, causing serious economic loss in the aquaculture, fishery, and food processing. However, research on the autolysis of sea cucumber is limited. In the present study, the autoenzyme that could hydrolyze the structural protein of body wall was identified and characterized in sea cucumber Stichopus monotuberculatus. Although the main edible part of sea cucumber was the body wall, its microstructure was shown to be almost composed of collagen fibers belonging to extracellular matrix, indicating that the body wall of S. monotuberculatus belonged to dermis tissue. Starting from this perspective, crude collagen fibrils from dermis of S. monotuberculatus was isolated, and pepsin solubilized collagen was also obtained by hydrolyzing collagen telopeptides from crude collagen fibrils. Crude collagen fibrils and pepsin solubilized collagen were then acting as substrates, respectively, to identify dermis autoenzyme which had hydrolytic activity on dermis collagen. After that, ...