ENZYMANALYTIK IN DER LEBENSMITTELINDUSTRIE - HEUTE

Abstract

Enzymes, the catalysts of the living cell, fasten the speed of chemical reactions; they are highly specific towards their substrates and the reactions catalyzed. These are the reasons why they are used successfully for analysis. Enzymatic analysis is the determination of metabolites by means of enzymes (enzymes used as reagents = chemicals), the determination of enzymatic activities, as well as the use of enzymes as marker substances for the highly specific antigen-antibody reaction. Enzymatic methods are superior to chemical methods and often 'better' than physico-chemical separation techniques where they are often used as reference methods. Enzymatic procedures for the analysis of sugars, acids, alcohols and other substances can be applied to food and non-food samples in form of manual assays as final value or kinetic methods, with discrete and continuous flow automatic systems, in form of test strips, simple and highly sophisticated ones, or with immobilized enzymes. Electrodes and other systems using enzymes are used or under development. Main fields of application of enzymatic methods are e.g. milk and dairy products, fruit juice, wine, meat and egg products. Reasons for application are control of technology, quality-price comparisons, control of raw materials and final products, as well as governmental control to see whether laws and regulations are observed and the products are labeled in correct way. Enzymatic methods are recommended nationally and internationally, they are published in governmental food manuals and in standards. The determination of enzymatic activities is also of importance in food analysis, but there are some problems to be solved, especially to find the ‘best’ test system to get 'good' results, because it is only possible to get optimal data from optimized methods and not accurate ones.