Abstract—Peroxidase from fingerroot was partially purified and characterized for potential use in analytical applications. The procedure began with crude extract preparation, followed by ammonium sulfate fractionation and concanavalin A-sepharose 4B affinity chromatography. The fraction of protein precipitated at 20-40% saturation of ammonium sulfate possessed the highest specific activity of 7.74 units/ mg. This fraction was subsequently purified further using affinity binding of peroxidase, a glycosylated enzyme, to Concanavalin A-sepharose 4B column. The chromatographic step produced peroxidase with specific activity of 55.33 units/ mg and resulted in 19.34 fold of purification. Invetigation on optimal conditions revealed pH optimum to be at 6 and temperature optimum to be at 40 °C. After 5 hour incubation fingerroot peroxidase retained 60% of activity at pH 6 and 40 °C. Activity of the enzyme rapidly dropped at pH 2, while temperature at 70 °C and above inactivated the enzyme within the first hour. At concentration of 5 mM CaCl2, MgCl2, MnCl2, NaCl and ZnCl2 did not show notable effect on peroxidase activity, whereas CuCl2 and FeCl2 moderately inhibited the activity of peroxidase. AlCl3 and FeCl3 at 5 mM highly inhibited the activity of the enzyme up to 70%.
Index Terms—peroxidase, fingerroot, purification, characterization, specific activity