[Interaction : detergents-enzymes]

Abstract

The study on the action of eight synthetic detergents of various types of well defined structure and properties (neutral, anionic, cationic) has been realized on fourteen highly purified enzymes of animal or vegetal origin of great metabolic importance, on these of homogenates of intestine or liver of normal rats and of rats fed during a relatively long period with food containing synthetic detergents. The action of all studied detergents on highly purified enzymes has been characterized as this of specific effectors, producing a reversible denaturation of enzymatic proteins to whom they combine. Ingestion of detergents by rats leads, probably by the same mechanism, to a diminution in vivo of the activity of some intestinal and hepatic enzymes.