Effects of enzymes on Yucca glauca Nutt. and other steroid-yielding monocotyledons

Abstract

Abstract A routine assay procedure for steroidal sapogenins in plant tissue is described in which the endogenous enzymes are allowed to function before the tissue is treated with acid. Inhibition of this enzyme action either by disintegration of the tissue in acid or by autoclaving gave a low yield from the leaf, corm, rhizome, tuber or root of the genera so tested (Agave, Aletris, Asparagus, Smilax, Trillium and Yucca). Oven-dried material, in powder, needed to be incubated with water for one day for the full sapogenin-affording enzyme activity to occur. When autoclaved leaf of Yucca glauca Nutt. was incubated with commercial cellulase it gave about 80% of the yield of sapogenin afforded by the unheated leaf. The yield is also given when emulsin or pectinase is used instead of the endogenous enzymes.