Screening of Heavy Metals in Selected Vegetables using the Papain Inhibitive Assay

Authors

  • Noor Azlina Masdor Biotechnology Research Centre, MARDI, P. O. Box 12301, 50774 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • M.I.E. Halmi Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University Putra Malaysia, UPM 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • Baskaran Gunasekaran Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University Putra Malaysia, UPM 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • M.R. Sulaiman School of Food Science & Nutrition, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54987/ajpb.v2i2.184

Keywords:

heavy metals, vegetables, enzyme assay, FIMS

Abstract

Vegetables are major source of heavy metals contaminant in the diet of humans. Currently,
monitoring of heavy metals in vegetables is carried out by instruments such as Inductively-
Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrophotometer (ICP-OES) or Flow Injection Mercury
System (FIMS). Instrumental method alone is costly, need skilled personnel and time
consuming. In this work, the papain assay was used to screen for the presence of heavy metals
in tweleve digested vegetables samples after neutralization. None of the non-spiked samples
tested shows levels of heavy metals above the maximum residue limit (MRL) allowed for
heavy metals in vegetables using both instrumental and papain assay. The papain assay was
able to detect by mercury-spiked vegetable samples indicating that the assay could tolerate the
high salt of the digested sample matrix. Papain assay is simple, rapid and low in cost. It requires
small sample volumes and could be carried out in a microplate format. The assay can act as a
preliminary screening assay. Positive samples are sent for heavy metals level using instruments.
Using this approach, higher frequency and number of monitoring can be carried out.

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Published

2014-12-30

How to Cite

Masdor, N. A., Halmi, M., Gunasekaran, B., & Sulaiman, M. (2014). Screening of Heavy Metals in Selected Vegetables using the Papain Inhibitive Assay. Asian Journal of Plant Biology, 2(2), 66–69. https://doi.org/10.54987/ajpb.v2i2.184

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2014)

Section

Articles

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