Immobilized protease on the magnetic nanoparticles used for the hydrolysis of rapeseed meals

(3-aminopropl) triethoxysilaneand modified magnetic nanoparticles with the average diameter of 25.4 nm were synthesized in water-phase co-precipitation method. And then these nanoparticles were covalently coupled with alkaline protease as enzyme carrier by using 1,4-phenylene diisothlocyanate as coupling agent. Experiments showed that the immobilized protease can keep the catalytic bioactivity, which can reach to 47.8% when casein was served as substrate. Results showed that the catalytic activity of immobilized protease on these magnetic nanoparticles could retain 98.63 +/- 2.37% after 60 days. And it is more stable than the free protease during the shelf-life test. The enzyme reaction conditions such as optimum reaction temperature and pH are the same as free protease. Furthermore, mix-and-separate experiments showed that the immobilized protease could be recycled through the magnetic nanoparticles after the biocatalysis process. When the rapeseed meals were used as substrate, the degree of hydrolysis of immobilized alkaline protease achieved 9.86%, while it was 10.41% for the free protease. The macromolecular proteins of rapeseed meals were hydrolyzed by immobilized protease into small molecules such as polypeptides or amino acids. Thus, a novel efficient and economic way for the recycling of enzymes in the application of continuous production of active peptides was provided based on these magnetic nanoparticles. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.