“…Furthermore, previous studies have shown that there is no difference between coeliac and non-coeliac duodenal mucosa in their prolidase or prolinase activities (Messer et al, 1961). It is nevertheless possible, as suggested by Krainick et al (1959), that the postulated coeliac-active peptide consists mainly of glutamine and proline, if only for the reason that these two amino-acids together constitute over 50 % of the protein (Woychik, Boundy, and Dimler, 1961). The apparent resistance of the coeliac-active constituent of gluten to a variety of proteases (pepsin, trypsin, pancreatin, pure papain, and probably also chymopapain) suggests that it has an unusual amino-acid composition; this could well be due to a high proline content.…”