Cathepsin D was purified to apparently homogeneous form from normal human liver and hepatoma. The purified enzyme could not be distinguished between normal liver and hepatoma in terms of specific activity, subunit composition, antigenicity, amino acid composition and tryptic peptides. However, the hepatoma enzyme exhibited more charge heterogeneity to give multiple acidic variant forms which were devoid or much less in the normal liver enzyme. When the hepatoma enzyme was treated with endo-beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase H, the acidic variant forms disappeared and were converted into forms identical to those of normal liver. The content of mannose-6-phosphate in the hepatoma enzyme was twice as much as that in the normal liver enzyme. Thus, charge heterogeneity found in hepatoma cathepsin D is ascribed to increased phosphorylation on oligosaccharides bound to the enzyme, most probably due to cancer-associated, impaired processing in carbohydrate moiety. A significant elevation of cathepsin D activity per tissue proteins was observed in hepatoma as compared to normal liver. In contrast, true specific activity per cathepsin D protein in hepatoma was significantly lowered than that of normal liver. The lower true specific activity in hepatoma tissue may be attributed to an increased content in an inactive, large-molecular precursor form of the enzyme.