Full Length Research Paper

Alkaline protease from senesced leaves of invasive weed Lantana camara

Smriti Gaur and Neeraj Wadhwa*

Department of Biotechnology, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology University, A-10 sec 62, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: neeraj.wadhwa@jiit.ac.in. Tel: + (91)-120-2590884. Fax: + (91)-120-2400986.

Accepted 23 October, 2008

Protease from senesced leaves of the weed Lantana camara was purified in a 2-step procedure involving ammonium sulfate precipitation and Sephadex G-250 gel permeation chromatography. The Sephadex-G-250 fraction of senesced leaves of Lantana camara showed 28.31 fold with a yield of 6.19%. The enzyme was shown to have a low molecular weight of 43 kda by SDS-PAGE. It was strongly activated by metal ions such as Cu2+, Zn2+, Mg2+, Co2+ and Mn2+. It remained active at 60°C, pH 10.5 even after 1 h of incubation when casein was used as substrate. The compatibility of the enzyme was studied with commercial and local detergents, 60% activity of the enzyme was retained even after 1 h of incubation at pH 10.0. The easy availability of the senesced leaves of this common weed makes it a cheaper enzyme source and potential additive in detergents.

Key words: Lantana camara, senescenced leaves, alkaline protease, thermostability.