Peroxidase Peroxidase can be extrac

Peroxidase
Peroxidase can be extracted from any of a number of plants, but we will discuss here the enzyme
extracted from turnips, which happen to have a high concentration of peroxidase. All
peroxidases are remarkably stable and easy to assay. This makes peroxidase a good enzyme to
use for comparisons among species.
Information:
These virtues have been recognized commercially
. Many ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent
assay) diagnostic tests use a closel
y related peroxidase (fro
m horseradish) and the same color-producing agent
(TMB). Because the enzyme is so st
able, the diagnostic kit can be stored
by hospitals and clinics for relatively
long periods of time. So, in
some cases, human survival may
be linked to a plant enzyme.
Your AI will prepare a very crude enzyme extract by homogenizing a small amount of turnip
root in water (using a Waring blender) and then filtering the homogenate (see Appendix C for
details). This extract will contain all of the soluble proteins from the turnip root. However, we
need not be concerned about the thousands of
other kinds of proteins present because only
peroxidase will catalyze the reaction that you will measure