History
MMPs were described initially by Jerome Gross and Charles Lapiere (1962), who observed enzymatic activity (collagen triple helix degradation) during tadpole tail metamorphosis (by placing a tadpole tail in a collagen matrix plate). Therefore, the enzyme was named interstitial collagenase (MMP-1).
Later, it was purified from human skin (1968), and was recognized to be synthesized as a zymogen.
The "cysteine switch" was described in 1990.
Read more about this topic: Matrix Metalloproteinase
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)