Antibody Cleavage Enzyme

Immunoglobulin G-degrading enzyme of Streptococcus pyogenes (IdeS), is a cysteine hydrolase produced and secreted extracellularly by the human pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes. This protease has extremely high substrate specificity and can only recognize IgG. It cleaves IgG at specific sites in the lower hinge region of the antibody, hydrolyzing IgG into a complete F(ab')₂ fragment and an Fc fragment. IdeS can recognize IgG from human and many other animal sources, such as mouse, rabbit, monkey, sheep, and human-animal chimeric IgG.

IdeZ protease (IgG - specific) is a recombinant antibody-specific protease cloned from Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus. It can recognize all human, sheep, monkey, and rabbit IgG subclasses and specifically cleaves at a single recognition site below the hinge region, generating a homogeneous pool of F(ab')₂ and Fc fragments. IdeZ protease cleaves mouse IgG2a more efficiently than IdeS.