Aqueous two-phase extraction of plant enzymes from sources containing large amounts of tannins and anionic mucilages.

The isolation of plant enzymes is frequently hampered by the presence of phenolic compounds, pigments and mucilages. Recently, extraction procedures based on aqueous two-phase systems were used to overcome these problems. Two-phase systems have a great advantage in respect to yield, product purity and processing time. Two-phase systems may open many new avenues in research as well as for application of enzymes from plant material, especially making available enzymes of sources avoided till now, due to the difficulties to work with.