Stabilization of potato tuber lipoxygenase on talc.

Potato tuber lipoxygenase, like many plant enzymes is a very labile protein and can lose activity during or after the purification procedure. In order to overcome this problem, we immobilized potato tuber lipoxygenase by adsorption on talc, a silicate support. Lipoxygenase adsorption greatly increased the long-term stability of the enzyme without modifying enzyme specificity. Moreover, adsorption on talc could be used to purify labile enzymes whose enzymatic activity decreases rapidly during purification stages. A multi-step reaction to produce large quantities (around 100 mg) of fatty acid hydroperoxides without enzyme inactivation was developed.