Action of the Digestive Juice of the Snail Limicolaria Flammea on Raw Starches.

ABSTRACT

This study reports the action of digestive juice of snail Limicalaria flammea on raw starches. This juice exhibited maximum activity at pH 4.0-5.5 and was optimally active at 40-50 °C. About 82.5 % of the original amylasic activity still remained after treatment at 50 °C for 16 h. The digestive juice had a strong digesting ability towards various raw starches and efficiently hydrolyzed raw corn starch at a concentration of 1.0% and pH 5 at 40 °C in a period of 12 h. The rate of hydrolysis of the raw corn and cassava starches were 64.37 % and 42.0 % respectively while that of palmyrah palm was 29.05 %. The analysis of the hydrolyzed products of the raw starches by thin layer chromatography showed the glucose, maltosaccharide and dextrin after 12 h of hydrolysis.