Evaluation of enzymes produced from yeast

Pichia pinus was found to be capable of growing on mango wastes, producing pectinase (pectin lyase, EC-4.2.2.10) and lactase (beta-galactosidase, EC-3.2.1.23) enzymes. The two enzymes were successively purified by precipitation with ammonium sulfate followed by chromatography on Sephadex G-120. The purification procedure provided 1,846 and 929 fold purification with 20.6 and 24% yield recovery of pectinase and lactase, respectively. the km value of pectinase was 0.33% for pectin at pH 4.5 and that for lactase was 0.166% for lactose at pH 7.0. The purified enzymes, pectinase and lactase are stable up to 50 degrees C for 60 and 45 min, respectively, with 20 and 35% loss of their activity. Gel filtration on Sephadex G-200 indicated that the molecular weights of the purified pectinase was 90 x 10(3) Dalton and of lactase 115 x 10(3) Dalton. On the basis of the evaluation tests done, the enzymes were considered to have a potential technological interest as treating mango pastes (residues left after mango juice preparation) with the two prepared enzymes resulted in an increase of the colour intensity, total carbohydrate content and juice yield. Treating milk with the purified lactase also showed an increase in the total carbohydrate and reducing sugar produced.