Validation of spectrophotometric microplate methods for polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase activities analysis in fruits and vegetables

Enzymes polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and peroxidase (POD) play important roles in the processing of fruits and vegetables, since they can produce undesirable changes in color, texture and flavor. Classical methods of activity assessment are based on cuvette spectrophotometric readings. This work aims to propose, to validate and to test microplate spectrophotometric methods. Samples of apple juice and lyophilized enzymes from mushroom and horseradish were analyzed by the cuvette and microplate methods and it was possible to validate the microplate assays with satisfactory results regarding linearity, repeatability, accuracy along with quantitation and detection limits. The proposed microplate methods proved to be reliable and reproducible as the classical methods besides having the advantages of allowing simultaneous analysis and requiring a reduced amount of samples and reactants, which can beneficial to the study of enzyme inactivation in the processing of fruits and vegetables.