A series of acetyl-peptidyl-amides containing the amino acid sequence around the Arg-Ser kallikrein cleavage site of bovine kininogen were synthesized and tested for their ability to inhibit both the kinin-releasing activity and the amidase activity of purified human urinary kallikrein. The substrate analogues were competitive inhibitors for human urinary kallikrein and the heptapeptides (P4-P3'), hexapeptides (P3-P3'), and pentapeptides (P2-P3') gave Ki values of 140, 64, and 18 microM respectively, while the tetrapeptides (P1-P3'), tripeptides (P1'-P3') and dipeptides (P2'-P3') had little or no inhibitory activity. The effective analogues had neither kinin-like nor kinin-blocking activity on the rat uterus either before or after exposure to human urinary kallikrein. The effective human urinary kallikrein inhibitors were further examined for their effect on other serine proteases, including human plasma kallikrein, plasmin, complement components (C1s, C1r), bovine coagulation factors (IIa, IXa, and Xa), elastase, and trypsin. These peptides showed little inhibition of the circulating serine proteases but yielded a Ki for the nonspecific protease trypsin in the microM range. These results should provide the basis for the development of highly specific tissue kallikrein inhibitors to aid in elucidating the in vivo role(s) of tissue kallikreins.