Creative Enzymes is a globally recognized leader specialized in measuring enzyme activities. Having tested activities of numerous enzymes in the past several years, Creative Enzymes has accumulated considerable professional experiences, which further help to provide rapid and high-quality enzyme activity assays for its customers. Activity measurement of tannase is one of our best assay services.

Tannase (EC 3.1.1.20; tannin acylhydrolase) is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of ester and depside bonds in hydrolysable tannins, releasing glucose and gallic acid. Tannase is adaptive, intracellular or extracellular, inducible hydrolase in nature and is placed into the esterase superfamily. The product, gallic acid, is of considerable importance in food and pharmaceutical industries. For example, gallic acid is used in the enzymatic synthesis of propyl gallate, which is mainly used as an antioxidant in fats and oils. Furthermore, gallic acid also serves as a precursor for the commercial production of trimethoprim, an antimalarial drug, and as photosensitive resin in semiconductor production. Note that, tannase has extensive applications. This enzyme has been used in the prevention of phenol-induced mediarization in wine, production of coffee-flavored soft drinks, clarification of beer and juices, stabilization of malt polyphenol, detection of the cancerous cells, treatment of wastewater effluents containing tannins, and as a sensitive analytical probe for determining the structure of naturally occurring gallic acid esters. Recently, tannase has also been shown to be used for the cleavage of polyphenolics such as dehydrodimer cross-links present in the cell wall of plants, which is essential for plant cell wall digestibility. Therefore, it can be concluded that tannase is becoming more and more important in food and pharmaceutical industries.

Creative Enzymes is proud to be one of the few companies worldwide specifically developing and providing enzyme activity assays. The activity of tannase is determined by using spectrophotometric assay. This assay is based on formation of the chromogen during the reaction between gallic acid (released by the action of tannase on methyl gallate) and rhodanine (2-thio-4-ketothiazolidine). Tannase acts on methyl gallate, which acts as a substrate, and produces the gallic acid. Rhodanine reacts only with gallic acid, forming chromogen which is measured by a spectrophotometer at the absorbance of 520 nm.

Creative Enzymes creates exclusive and unique enzyme assays to stand out in the marketplace. Working closely with customers through our effort to solve specific problems and optimize processes, is integral to our process. Ultimately, many customers have been loyal to Creative Enzymes, and we hope to win your business soon as well.

Figure: The crystal structure of tannase from Lactobacillus plantarum.
PDB: 3WA6