Does catalase have different properties in liver than in potatoes?
I used to do a practical which compared catalase activity in liver, muscle (beef), apple and potato. It was difficult to achieve equal volumes and equal surface areas etc of the different materials under test. A small piece of each was added to hydrogen peroxide and the volume of oxygen produced was measured. Liver was much more active (usually at least 10x) than the others. The experiment worked well even if the meats had been frozen. Kath Crawford I have compared salivary amylase with diastase extracted from plants or bacteria. We found that not only were the activities different, but we measured a different optimum pH for the enzymes from different sources, suggesting that they were different at the molecular level too. Whether all sources of catalase are identical molecules, I don’t know.
