Investigators are agreed (Kneen and Sandstedt, 1946; Myrback and Neumuiller, 1950) that bacterial amylases, except crystalline preparations (Meyer et al., 1947; Bernfeld, 1951), possess a greater thermostability than other alpha-amylases. Although many investigators have studied the heat stability of amylases from various sources, no study has been published comparing the thermal resistance of ...

Folate intake is strongly influenced by various methods of cooking that can degrade the natural forms of the vitamin in foods. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of different cooking methods on folate retention in various foods that contribute to folate intake in the UK diet. Typical purchasing and cooking practices of representative food folate sources were determined fro...

The effect of several nutritional and environmental parameters on growth and amylase production from Rhizopus microsporus var. rhizopodiformis was analysed. This fungus was isolated from soil of the Brazilian "cerrado" and produced high levels of amylolytic activity at 45 degrees C in liquid medium supplemented with starch, sugar cane bagasse, oat meal or cassava flour. Glucose in the culture m...

The present review describes the structural features of alpha-amylase, beta-amylase and glucoamylase that are the best known amylolytic enzymes. Although they show similar function, i.e. catalysis of hydrolysis of alpha-glucosidic bonds in starch and related saccharides, they are quite different. alpha-Amylase is the alpha --> alpha retaining glycosidase (it uses the retaining mechanism), and b...

Starch is a polymeric carbohydrate composed of glucose. As a source of energy, starch can be degraded by various amylolytic enzymes, including α-amylase. In a large-scale industry, starch processing cost is still expensive due to the requirement of high temperature during the gelatinization step. Therefore, α-amylase with raw starch digesting ability could decrease the energy cost by avoiding t...

BACKGROUND The miswak (Salvadora persica) is a natural toothbrush. It is well known that very little information has been reported on enzymes in miswak as medicinal plant. Recently, we study peroxidase in miswak. In the present study, the main goal of this work is to purify and characterize α-amylase from miswak. The second goal is to study the storage stability of α-amylase in toothpaste. ME...

Amylases are one of the main enzymes used in industry. Such enzymes hydrolyze the starch molecules into polymers composed of glucose units. Amylases have potential application in a wide number of industrial processes such as food, fermentation and pharmaceutical industries. α-Amylases can be obtained from plants, animals and microorganisms. However, enzymes from fungal and bacterial sources hav...