Selective release of invertase by hydrodynamic cavitation

The purification of intracellular enzymes from microbial cells requires cell disruption as one of the unit operations. Hydrodynamic cavitation has been shown to be useful for large-scale cell disruption. Invertase is an enzyme located in the periplasmic space of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells. The release of invertase by disruption of S. cerevisiae cells using sonication, high pressure homogenization and hydrodynamic cavitation has been studied. The energy efficiency of these equipments in releasing invertase has been calculated and compared. Hydrodynamic cavitation has been found to release the periplasmic enzyme invertase selectively than the other two methods used for disruption. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.