Comparative Study on The Extraction and Purification The Stem and Fruit Bromelain From Pineapple (Ananas comosus)

Bromelain is a mixture of enzymes from the pineapple that contains, among other components, various closely related proteases. It has a wide industrial and therapeutic applications. The present research extracted bromelain from the stem and fruit of fully repined pineapple plants cultivated in Nigeria by homogenization in an aqueous buffer and purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and DEAE-cellulose chromatography. Enzyme activities were determined using N α-Carbobenzoxy-Lysine p-Nitrophenyl Ester (LNPE) as substrate, spectrophotometrically. Total protein was estimated using Bradford method. The results obtained, showed that stem bromelain (SBM) was better suited for the purification procedure adopted with the percentage yield of 463% and purification fold of 4.64 over fruit bromelan (FBM) which showed a percentage yield and purification fold of 0.23 and 23.4%, respectively. Keywords: cysteine proteases, bromelain, stem bromelain, fruit bromelain, LNPE, bioremediatio