Papain enzyme
1 Active Unit: 200000iu-3000000iu/gm
2 White ~light yellow powder
General description
The mechanism by which it breaks peptide bonds involves deprotonation of Cys-25 by His-159. Asparagine-175 helps to orient the imidazole ring of His-159 to allow this deprotonation to take place. Cys-25 then performs a nucleophilic attack on the carbonyl carbon of a peptide backbone. This frees the amino terminal of the peptide, and forms a covalent acyl-enzyme intermediate. The enzyme is then deacylated by a water molecule, and releases the carboxy terminal portion of the peptide. In immunology, papain is known to cleave the Fc (crystallisable) portion of immunoglobulins (antibodies) from the Fab (antigen-binding) portion.Papain is relatively heat resistant enzyme
Function and Application
1 Its utility is in breaking down tough meat fibers
2 dissociate cells in the first step of cell culture preparations
3 Papain can also be found as an ingredient in some toothpastes or mints as teeth-whitener.
4 it is the main ingredient of Papacarie,
Production
Papain is usually produced as a crude, dried material by collecting the latex from the fruit of the papaya tree. The latex is collected after scoring the neck of the fruit where it may either dry on the fruit or drip into a container. This latex is then further dried. It is now classified as a dried, crude material. A purification step is necessary to remove contaminating substances. This purification consists of the solubilization and extraction of the active papain enzyme system through a government-registered process. This purified papain may be supplied as powder or as liquid.