Conditions and optimization for the degradation of different substrates by a carotenoid cleavage enzyme

The variation of the non- volatile compounds generated from the degradation of different substrates by carotenoid cleavage enzyme was investigated using HPLC method,with the changing of enzymolysis time,p H value and temperature.The results showed that the production of non- volatile compounds had a trend of increased at the beginning and then decreased,with the increasing of enzymolysis time and temperature and decreasing of p H.In addition,it was found that the β- carotene was degraded into different products at different p H values. By using quadratic polynomial stepwise regression analysis,the optimum reaction conditions for cleaving different substrates by purified enzyme were obtained and summarize as follows: p H4.5,15 min at 30 ℃ for β- carotene,p H4.5,13 min at 30 ℃ for zeaxanthin,p H4.5,45 min at 33 ℃ for β- apo- 8'- carotenal,p H4.0,41 min at 30 ℃ for canthaxanthin,p H4.5,7 min at 50 ℃ for astaxanthin,respectively. Under these conditions,the total yields of nonvolatile products were 1.74,1.80,1.39,1.66 and 1.75- fold higher than the defined yields,respectively.In conclusion,this method could be used to enhance the yields of non- volatile products effectively and was also time- saving.