INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia (2019-02-20)

Fractionation and Characterization of Fruit Bromelain

Bromelain is a type of protease existing in both fruits and stems of pineapples. Stem bromelain has been extensively investigated and is commercially available for applications in various industries. On contrast, studies on fruit bromelain are quite limited since most of pineapples have been consumed freshly, canned or juiced. Nowadays, the consumption in canned fruits, including canned pineapples has decreased greatly. Fruit bromelain could be a new growth point for pineapple industry. In this study, fruit bromelain was extracted from the pineapple juice of Phuket variety and parts of its properties were studied. The enzyme was purified by precipitation using ammonium sulfate fractionation followed by ion-exchange and gel filtration chromatography. Consequently, the protease purification was increased by 95.2 folds with 56% recovery and 4.48-fold specific activity. The final specific activity reached a peak of 4.48×106 U g-1, dominated by cysteine proteases, with optimal activity at 45 °С, and pH ranging 6 to 8. The study facilitates the molecular and application research on fruit bromelain
Dr. Zhiping Han Han, Dr. Saelim Kraiyot, Dr. Aran H Kittikun, Dr. Sheng Wang