Intramolecular autoproteolysis initiates the maturation of penicillin amidase from Escherichia coli.

The penicillin amidase (PA) from Escherichia coli belongs to a group of proteolytically processed bacterial enzymes. The mechanism of the maturation of the single polypeptide proenzyme has been studied for the PA from E. coli using a slowly processing mutant proenzyme.