Production, Purification and Assay of Pectinase Enzyme from Orange Peels

Production of microbial enzymes at the industrial scale and their commercialization has gained a lot of focus and importance. Use of Microbes as bioreactors was also started due to these developments. Some of the industrially important enzymes from microbial origin include and Pectinases. The organisms were isolated from the fruit peel and were cultured on to Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA) agar Plate . The organisms were screened to produce the Pectinase enzyme using Pectin agar media. Microscopic identification and Morphology study revealed that the Fungi isolated was Aspergillus niger. The enzyme thus produced was purified by several steps including Salt precipitation. The purified product was used for the Enzyme assay which showed that the activity of the enzyme produced was 0.043µmol/min/mg. Quantitative estimation of the enzyme was performed by Lowry’s Method which showed the concentration of the enzyme to be 24µg/ml. The results thus obtained can conclude that the use of Aspergillus niger in the industrial production of Pectinase is highly beneficial.