The 20S proteasome purified from animal cells has various latent peptidase activities. Fatty acids such as linoleic, linolenic and oleic acids strongly activate both the chymotrypsin-type and peptidylglutamylpeptide (PGP) hydrolase-type activities, but have been reported to have little activation or inhibition of the trypsin-type activity. We show here that an increase of the fatty acid concentration produces activation of chymotrypsin-type and PGP hydrolase-type in a biphasic fashion: no effect until the threshold concentration and then a sharp activation. In contrast, the trypsin-type activity was markedly inhibited at low concentrations of fatty acid, slightly activated at higher concentrations, and inhibited again at even higher concentrations. The inhibition was removed when the concentration of fatty acid was reduced by dilution after pre-incubation with the fatty acid. As a result, the activation pattern became biphasic, which was identical to that of chymotrypsin-type and PGP hydrolase-type activities. These results suggest that in the chymotrypsin-type and PGP hydrolase-type peptidases fatty acids bind first to a class of sites without direct effect on the peptidase activity, but after saturation of this class it permits more fatty acid to bind to another class of sites involved in the activation. In the trypsin-type peptidase an additional class of fatty acid binding sites is uniquely present, which is involved in the enzyme inhibition. The dilution procedure described above removes the fatty acid molecules bound to the inhibition sites, but not the fatty acid molecules bound to the activation sites; this results in the fatty acid activation profile indistinguishable from that of the chymotrypsinand PGP hydrolase-type peptidases.