Effect of Microwave Treatment on Catalysis of Papain

Abstract

In this article, investigation on the effect of microwave treatment on the catalysis of papain had been carried out. According to the results, the thermal effect was found to be the main factor to cause inactivation of enzyme. The kinetic parameters and the fluorescence spectroscopy implied that the microwave processing had changed the conformation of the enzyme molecules and thus affected its activity. The results also showed that the microwave treatment had not changed the optimum pH value of the enzyme catalysis, and the inactivation rate of the enzyme was inversely proportional to the concentration of the enzyme. In addition, a certain concentration of the disodium EDTA media had been found to effectively protect the enzyme activity in microwave processing.