Using myeloperoxidase and hydrogen peroxide, activated neutrophils produce high local concentrations of hypochlorous acid (HOCl). They also secrete cathepsin G, a serine protease implicated in cytokine release, receptor activation, and degradation of tissue proteins. Isolated cathepsin G was inactivated by HOCl but not by hydrogen peroxide in vitro. We found that activated neutrophils lost cathepsin G activity by a pathway requiring myeloperoxidase, suggesting that oxidants generated by myeloperoxidase might regulate cathepsin G activity in vivo. Tandem mass spectrometric analysis of oxidized cathepsin G revealed that loss of a peptide containing Asp 108 , which lies in the active site, associated quantitatively with loss of enzymatic activity. Catalytic domain peptides containing Asp 108 were lost from the oxidized protein in concert with the conversion of Met 110 to the sulfoxide. Release of this peptide was blocked by pretreating cathepsin G with phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, strongly implying that oxidation introduced proteolytic cleavage sites into cathepsin G. Model system studies demonstrated that methionine oxidation can direct the regiospecific proteolysis of peptides by cathepsin G. Thus, oxidation of Met 110 may contribute to cathepsin G inactivation by at least two distinct mechanisms. One involves direct oxidation of the thioether residue adjacent to the aspartic acid in the catalytic domain. The other involves the generation of new sites that are susceptible to proteolysis by cathepsin G. These observations raise the possibility that oxidants derived from neutrophils restrain pericellular proteolysis by inactivating cathepsin G. They also suggest that methionine oxidation could render cathepsin G susceptible to autolytic cleavage. Myeloperoxidase may thus play a previously unsuspected role in regulating tissue injury by serine proteases during inflammation.Neutrophils play a key role in host defense by migrating to sites of infection, where they phagocytose invading microorganisms (1). After a neutrophil encloses a microbe, the resulting phagosome fuses with granules containing microbicidal and digestive enzymes to form a phagolysosome. The azurophilic granules of neutrophils are rich in serine proteases, including cathepsin G and neutrophil elastase, which play critical roles in killing bacteria (2-4).Although such proteases are important for tissue homeostasis and host defense, an imbalance between proteases and their inhibitors is implicated in tissue damage during inflammation (5). It is therefore likely that plasma-derived inhibitors of cathepsin G, such as ␣ 1 -antichymotrypsin and ␣ 1 -antitrypsin, help limit proteolysis (6). However, traditional enzyme kinetics cannot fully explain the regulation of proteolysis by neutrophils. Thus, even in the presence of plasma-derived protease inhibitors, neutrophils produce evanescent "quantum bursts" of pericellular proteolytic activity (7). Cathepsin G could thus promote local proteolysis of a range of protein and peptide substrates, including cytoki...