Effect of Organic Solvents and Effectors on Radish Alpha Amylase

Abstract

In recent years, organic solvents have attracted large avenue of interest to explore the potential of enzyme to produce highly specific active chemical molecule of industrial advantage. The present study discerns the role of organic solvents as a reaction medium for enzymatic catalysis. The stability of alpha amylase in organic medium promises its major application in starch processing food industries and pharmaceutics. The enzyme appeared to be stable and retained considerable activity in the presence of various aprotic organic solvents such as acetone, acetonitrile and DMSO. The anomalous behavior of acetone showed concentration dependent increase in activity with 1.9 times enhancement at 50 % (v/v) concentration. Various polar organic solvents such as methanol, ethanol, propanol and ethylene glycol showed activation of enzyme except for nbutanol. Non-polar solvents also activated the enzymatic activity. The n-hexane showed about 1.2 folds activation at 30 % (v/v) concentration. Further, Cr3+, Al3+, was found to be activator while Cd2+and Ba2+also could not show any significant inhibitory effect. The sulfhydryl-modifying reagents such as NEM showed activation whereas partial inhibition occurred in the presence of IAA and pHMB. In addition, PMSF showed moderate activity of enzyme while urea appeared to be strong inhibitor of enzyme. However, the characteristic properties of stable alpha amylase in non-aqueous medium have potential utility in non-aqueous enzymology for various biotechnological processes.