Biochemistry & Analytical Biochemistry

Abstract

A Defense Associated Peroxidase from Lemon Having Dye Decolorizing Ability and Offering Resistance to Heat, Heavy Metals and Organic Solvents

Veda P Pandey, Prakash K Bhagat, Ramgopal Prajapati, Nivedita Jaiswal, Swati Singh, Manika Awasthi and Upendra N Dwivedi

Peroxidases have ability to catalyze redox reaction of a wide range of phenolic as well as non-phenolic compounds and exhibited various physiological roles in plant life cycle. From the point of view of industrial applications of peroxidases, the isolation and characterization of peroxidases offering resistance to higher pH and temperature, salts, organic solvents is highly desirable. In this direction, a partial cDNA clone of peroxidase from lemon was isolated and characterized. The peroxidase was found to be defense associated as evident by the higher expression in diseased condition than that of healthy one at both the transcript and enzymatic activity levels. This defense related peroxidase from lemon leaves was purified to homogeneity using quick two step processes of heat treatment and affinity chromatography. The native peroxidase was found to be a heterotrimer of 200 kDa, consisting of two subunits each of 66 kDa while, one subunit of 70 kDa. The purified peroxidase was found to be stable towards heat (retained 92% activity at 80°C for 1 h) and organic solvents, namely ethanol, methanol and isopropanol (retained 30-50% activity in the presence of 50% (v/v) of these solvents for 1 h). Purified peroxidase also exhibited tolerance to heavy metal ions such as Cd²⁺, Ni²⁺ and Cs²⁺. The purified lemon peroxidase was found to efficiently oxidize the industrial dyes in the order of aniline blue>methyl orange> indigo carmine >trypan blue > crystal violet, such that 40-54% dye decolorization was observed within 4 h. Thus, the properties exhibited by purified lemon peroxidase make it a promising candidate enzyme for industrial exploitation.