The proteins of the cuticle of adult Ascaris lumbricoides suum were characterized with respect to heterogeneity, glycosylation, and susceptibility to collagenase. Pepsin digestion of intact cuticles was used to determine the extent of stable triple-helical structures of the cuticular components. With sodium dodecyl sulfate-poly-acrylamide gel electrophoresis, it was shown that treatment of purified cuticles with beta-mercaptoethanol released three components (99, 90, and 68 kDa) which comprise 95% of the total solubilized material. The remaining fraction consists of at least four components (16, 28, 154, and 173 kDa). Periodic acid-Schiff staining showed that the only glycoprotein was the 173-kDa component. All cuticular components, except the 173-kDa protein, were degraded by bacterial collagenase. Pepsin digestion of intact cuticles for 24 hr at 4 C produced, after reduction, a 95-kDa fragment; by 96 hr, four fragments (95, 90, 83, and 77 kDa) were evident. When the 96-hr pepsin digest was treated with fresh pepsin, the 77-kDa fragment became the major constituent. With agarose gel electrophoresis, analysis of non-reduced, pepsin-released material revealed intact aggregates that were greater than 2 X 10(3) kDa. The enzyme digestion studies indicate that, with the exception of the 173-kDa component, each cuticular protein contains collagenous domains and that, within the cuticle, the longest contiguous collagen chain in a triple-helical conformation has a uniform molecular size of 77 kDa.