To start this experiment is to see how pectinase speeds up the breaking down of pectin in applesauce.Pectinase is a general term for enzymes that break down pectin, a polysaccharide substrate that is found in the cell walls of plants. Like all enzymes, pectinases have an optimum temperature and pH at which they are most active. The pectinase we used is activated between 45°-55° and works at its optimal at pH 4.8-5. The explanation of why the enzyme denatures would be that if the pH is decreased too much, there would be too many H+ ions around the protein and thus the H+ ions would be attracted to the places in the enzyme which were more negative than the enzyme, thus forming a hydrogen bond there. Also, if the pH is increased, there would be too many OH- ions and they would interact with the positive regions in the protein.

This negative or positive region could possibly be in the active site, and even if it is not it does end up disfiguring the enzyme. Due to the fact that the enzyme-substrate interaction is so specific, even the slightest deformity of the active site directly or indirectly will result in the enzyme involved not working properly. This change, if permanent, will render the enzyme useless. Pectinase is also very good for producing apple juice from apple sauce. This leads to the purpose of this experiment which is to see how much faster the pectinase breaks down pectin then by natural means and by natural means I mean just leaving the apple sauce on its own. I think that the pectinase will great speed up the process. I think this because of the property of the pectinase is designed to break down the cell wall which is the plants cell’s first line of defense and after that the plant cell is broken down into liquid form.

Procedure/Materials

To start this experiment you need two graduated cylinders with some kind of filter and funnel. Once we got this we got two samples of apple sauce one with pectinase in it and the other with out. We placed both samples in their respective graduated cylinder. Once we did that we timed how much liquid was in the cylinder after a certain amount of time. These time intervals were 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 6 minutes.

Results

With pectinase

Without pectinase

• 30 Seconds
• 1.5ml
• 1ml
• 1 minute
• 2ml
• 1.5ml
• 2 minutes
• 3ml
• 1.5ml
• 6 minutes
• 4ml
• 2ml

Conclusion

This experiment concluded that pectinase does speed up the process of breaking down the cell wall. This was proven by how much apple juice was made within the time allotted.

The pectinase is design to break down polysaccharides which the apple sauce was mainly consisted of. So that concludes this overall experiment.