It will be appreciated that different seeds contain several to many enzymes with protein- and peptide-hydrolyzing abilities, and that their sequential activities will result in the degradation of the stored proteins. Specific enzymes will initiate the mobilization of the proteins, and the timing and extent of mobilization of a particular protein can be fine-tuned by regulating the appearance and quantity of these initiating proteinases. Even different polypeptide components of the storage proteins are hydrolysed to different extents at different times during mobilization. An appreciable number of proteolytic enzymes has now been purified and characterized, which will lead to further work on the identification of their genes, the regulation of their synthesis, their targeting to protein bodies, and any posttranslational processing which is required for their activation.