Monomethoxypoly(ethylene glycol)-N-succinimide carbonate (SC-PEG) was used to prepare PEG-lysozyme, PEG-papaya proteinase III, PEG-catalase, and PEG-lactoperoxidase conjugates. SC-PEG produced extensively modified enzymes under mild conditions (pH 7.0; 25 degrees C) within a couple of hours. PEG-enzyme conjugates showed equal or even greater specific activity provided that low-molecular-weight substrates were used to evaluate the biological activities. However, papaya proteinase III and lysozyme lost their proteolytic and bacteriolytic activities, respectively, on conjugation with PEG. This was most probably because of steric factors, since no drastic conformational changes could be detected after conjugation of these enzymes with PEG chains. Unlike these enzymes, the secondary structures of the two hemoproteins were somewhat affected by the covalent attachment of PEG chains as shown by FTIR experiments. These results confirmed the potential usefulness of SC-PEG, for which a novel route of synthesis making use of N,N’-disuccinimidyl carbonate was described.