Comparative Studies Of The Proteolytic And The Milk Clotting Activities In The \'Latex\' Of Three Selected Plants

Abstract

The use of enzymes as catalysts for industrial processes is becoming increasingly widespread, particularly in the food industry. The proteolytic and milk clotting activities of the crude latex of Calotropis procera, Carica papaya, and Musa paradisiaca were examined. The proteolytic activities of the crude latex were determined using a modified casein digestion method. All the crude latex (16.7% concentration) yielded significant proteolytic activities of (5.63 ± 0.031) x 10² min^-1, (5.29 ± 0.015) x 10^-2 min^-1 and (4.97 ± 0.014) x 102 min^-1 for C. procera, C. papaya and M. paradisiaca repectively. At 16.7% concentration of the crue latex, C. procera and C. papaya had the milk clotting activities of 14.21 ± 0.72 min^-1 and 6.33 ± 0.20 min^-1 respectively; while M. paradisiaca yielded no milk clotting activity. However, preparation of 100% concentrated crude latex of M. paradisiaca yielded 4.81 ± 0.11 min^-1 milk clotting activity. The t-tests (P < 0.05) of the proteolytic and milk clotting activities of C. procera, C. papya and M. paradisiaca crude latex show that their activities are significantly different from one another. Nevertheless, the respective relative activities of these three plants are significantly high enough for the m to be used for either proteolytic assay and or milk clotting processes.

Ife Journal of Science Vol. 7(1) 2005: 31-35