Extraction Of Papain From Pawpaw Fruit And Assessment Of Its Enzymatic Activity::- Agwu, Chris J

ABSTRACT x Enzymes are biological catalyst which alters the rate of biochemical reaction by alteration in its activation energy. Papain is a plant endolytic enzyme from cysteine family; it is obtained primarily from latex pawpaw plant. This enzyme has gain more fame due to increasing interest in extracting plant base enzymes; it shows extensive proteolytic activity towards protein, short chains peptide and amino acids. Papain has various applications in textile industries, food industries, medical industries and pharmaceutical industries. The essence of this study is to extract this enzyme (papain) from latex of unripe pawpaw fruit of two different pawpaw species and determine their activities using milk coagulation method, (fresh animal milk and powdered milk). It was observed that powdered milk shows more enzymatic activity than that of the fresh cow milk, and the species of pawpaw plant used in extraction can determined the quality and quantity ofthe papain enzyme to be gotten.