Evaluation of Inactivation Kinetics and Thermodynamic Properties of Peroxidase from Cucumis sativus for Biotechnological and Industrial Applications

The unpurified enzyme gave specific activity of 51.36 μ/mg and thereafter it was subjected to two phases of purification process of salt precipitation and gel filtration. The precipitating agent was ammonium sulphate while Sephadex-G100 served as purification matrix. The purification fold achieved after precipitation and filtration was 3.3 and with corresponding specific activities of 34.22 μ/mg and 116.31 μ/mg. The substrate used for the assay was o-dianisidine. Within 40-80°C of temperature, the kinetics of the peroxidase inactivation was evaluated. The results from assays showed that cucumber peroxidase conformed to the hypothesis of Michealis-Menten Theory. From the Lineweaver-Burk plot, Michaelis Constant (Km) and maximum velocity (Vmax) were evaluated and obtained 5.02mg/ml and 11.57μmol/min respectively. The heat induced inactivation gave biphasic curves, where initial rise in temperature was rapidly succeeded with much slower decrease. A first-order kinetic behaviour was observed for cucumber peroxidase heat inactivation. The k values of between 3.49×10-2 to 8.38×10-2 min-1 was obtained while the Z value was found to be 22.3°C. Decrease in k values with rise in temperature suggests that cucumber peroxidase was rapidly inactivated at elevated temperature. The slope of Arrhenius plot gave the activation energy of 127.99KJMol-1K-1. Also evaluated were thermodynamic constants (ΔH, G Δ, ΔS) for inactivation of peroxidase at variable temperatures. Cucumber peroxidase activity was observed to be pH sensitive and stable within pH range of 5.6-8. Further decrease or increase from this range resulted to decrease in peroxidase stability.