Discovery of enzyme

Early discovery of enzyme is primarily associated with the knowledge of alcoholic fermentation.

Primitive tribes of tropical regions for centuries have practiced the art of meat tenderization by employing the leaves and the fruits of plants for processing meat.

In ancient times Greeks knew that if grape juice were kept at room temperature for a few days, it gets converted into alcohol.

It was not until the 19th century AD, however, that scientists addressed the question of whether the entity responsible for processes such as fermentation was a living species or a chemical substance.

But in 1857 Louis Pasteur established that the process of fermentation was closely associated with the growth and life of yeast. This concept was later disputed by J. Liebig who proposed that fermentation could take place even in the absence of living cells.

The properties and reactions of enzyme catalysis were first recognized by G.S.S Kirchhoff in 1811; however, the actual word ‘catalysis’ was coined in 1838 by Berzelius.

Freidrich Wilhelm Kuhne in 1878 coined the term enzyme (in yeast) for the substances which were earlier called ferment.

In 1897 Eduard Buchner published the observation that cell-free extracts of yeast containing no living cells were able to carry out the fermentation of sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Discovery of enzyme