Altay, Ahmet; Koktepe, Tubanur; Durmaz, Lokman; Topal, Fevzi; Gülçin, İlhami; Köksal, Ekrem

Cress (Lepidium sativum) is an annual herb from Brassicaceae family, and in some regions. It is known as peppergrass, garden cress, garden pepper-cress, pepperwort, or poor man’s pepper. Cress is an important medicinal plant in some countries including Turkey. This plant has major scientific and therapeutic significance. Peroxidase (POD, E.C.1.11.1.7) is an oxidor-eductase enzyme produced by a number of organisms. In this study, POD enzyme was purified from cress by ammonium sulphate precipitation, gel filtration, and CM-Sephadex ion-exchange chromatographies. K m and V max values were calculated from the Lineweaver-Burk graph for H 2 O 2 and guaiacol substrates and the substrate specificity of POD was investigated. The results showed that substrate specificity of H 2 O 2 is better than substrate specificity of guaiacol for this enzyme. The inhibition effects of three cations (Al 3+ , Cu 2+ , and Cr 3+ ) and one organic compound of cetyl trimethylammonium bromide were performed and their inhibition types were determined. Finally, optimum pH, optimum temperature, optimum ionic strength, and stable pH were determined.