Abstract:
After a seven day pilot studies, day 6 was found suitable for enzyme production from Fusarium species using starch from Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato) tubers as the carbon source. The specific activity of the crude enzyme was 55.45µ/mg. After ammonium sulphate precipitation and gel filtration, the specific activities were found to be 35.93µ/mg and 119.61µ/mg, respectively which corresponds to 3.33 fold purification. The optimum pH and temperature of the partially purified enzyme were 6.0 and 50oC, respectively. The enzyme activity was strongly activated by Mn2+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ but inhibited by Co2+. The Michaelis constant (Km) and maximum velocity (Vmax) obtained from the Lineweaver-Burk plot of initial velocity data at different substrate concentrations were 5.44mg/ml and 12.57µmol/min, respectively.
