Substrate specificity of two collagenolytic proteases from the king crab Paralithodes camtschatica has been studied. Both proteases are shown to hydrolyze effectively type I and III collagens, gelatin and fibrinogen. The variety of products formed during the enzymatic hydrolysis of the proteins appeared to be different for crab proteases A and C. Studies on peptide hydrolysis demonstrated that protease A cleaves preferably peptide bonds with Arg and Lys as carbonyl components, while protease C prefers hydrophobic amino acids. Kinetic constants of hydrolysis for low molecular weight substrates in the presence of crab proteases have been determined. This allowed us to characterize collagenolytic protease A as a trypsin-like protease. By contrast, collagenolytic protease C was classified as chymotrypsin-like protease although this protease and bovine chymotrypsin are not completely similar. Collagenase substrates Pz-Pro-Leu-Gly-Pro-D-Arg and Z-Gly-Pro-Ala-Gly-Pro-Ala were found to be resistant to both crab proteases.