A non-specific nucleoside hydrolase has been isolated from germinated Alaska pea seeds. The enzyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of both purines and pyrimidines along with ribo- and deoxyribonucleosides. A purification scheme utilized ammonium sulfate precipitation, ion exchange chromatography and size exclusion chromatography, resulted in 103-fold purification with a recovery of 2.8%. The purified protein has a specific activity of 0.308 mu mol/min.mg. The subunit molecular weight was 26103 Da and the enzyme exists as a dimer. The enzyme retains a significant amount of activity over a wide pH range with the maximum activity occurring at a pH of 6.0. The maximum activity was observed with adenosine as the substrate followed by inosine and guanosine, respectively. The K-m for adenosine was 184 +/- 34 mu M and for inosine 283 +/- 88 mu M. In addition to the nucleoside hydrolase activity, adenosine deaminase activity was seen in the initial extract. Using adenosine as the substrate with the initial extract from the germinated seeds, the products adenine, inosine, and hypoxanthine were identified based on their retention times during reverse phase HPLC.