A novel fibrinolytic enzyme was purified from Lyophyllum shimeji, a popular edible mushroom in Asia. The enzyme was purified using combination of anion exchange chromatography on a Mono Q 5/5 column and size exclusion gel filtration chromatography on Superdex 200 100/300 column. This purification protocol resulted 80.9-fold purification of the enzyme and a final yield of 5.7%. The molecular weight of the purified enzyme was estimated to be 21 kDa by SDS-PAGE and size exclusion gel filtration. The N-terminal amino acid sequence was found to be ITFQSASP, which is dissimilar from that of known fibrinolytic enzymes. The purified enzyme was a neutral protease with an optimal reaction pH and temperature of 8.0 and 37 degrees C, respectively. Enzymatic activity was inhibited by Cu2+ and Co2+. It was also significantly inhibited by PMSF and TPCK. Furthermore, it was found to exhibit a higher specificity for S-7388, a well-known chymotrypsin chromogenic substrate, indicating chymotrypsin like serine metalloprotease. The relative fibrinolytic activity of 5 mu g purified enzyme have two fold more activity than 1 unit/ml of plasmin on fibrin plate. Furthermore, purified enzyme preferentially hydrolyzed the A alpha-chain followed by the B beta- and gamma-chain of fibrinogen, which is precursor of fibrin. Therefore, these data suggests that the fibrinolytic enzyme derived from edible mushroom, L. shimeji, might be useful for thrombolytic therapy and preventing thrombotic disease. (C) 2013, The Society for Biotechnology, Japan. All rights reserved.