Immobilization Of Rennin Enzyme From Mucor pusillus With Alginate And Its Application In Cheese Making

Abstract

This study was aimed to understand the usage of alginate to immobilize rennin enzyme from Mucor pusillus and to know the good condition of temperature and pH in the cheese making with immobilized rennin enzyme from M. pusillus. Rennin from M. pusillus was produced using corn starch as substrate, incubated at 37oC for 116 hours. Immobilization was conducted with entrapment method using alginate. Proteolytic and milk-clotting activities of enzyme was measured. Furthermore, the immobilized enzyme was used in the cheese production with different temperatures (32, 37 and 42oC) and pH (5,0; 5,5 and 6,0) using Split Plot Design. It was conducted a test of moisture content, protein and fat for produced cheese. The result showed that the alginate matrix can be used to immobilize rennin enzyme from M. pusillus. Immobilization of rennin enzyme from M. pusillus has proteolitic activity value 0.1395 unit/ml/minute and milk-clotting activity value 6090 unit/mg protein/minute. The temperatures (32, 37 and 42oC) and pH (5.0; 5.5 and 6.0) in the fresh cheese making using immobilized rennin enzyme M. pusillus did not give significant effect (P>0.05) on moisture and protein content, but gave a highly significant effect (P<0.01) to increase fat content. It is concluded that alginate can be used in the rennin enzyme immobilization. The temperature of 37oC and pH 6.0 can be used to make a good quality cheese with immobilized rennin enzyme from M. pusillus using alginate. Keywords: immobilized enzyme, microbial rennin, alginate, cheese