Dephytinising efficacy of wheat phytase in enhancing the bioaccessibility of minerals in high phytate foods.

Iron defciency anemia and zinc defciency are major public health problems in developing world which are attributable to
the poor bioavailability due to the presence of phytic acid in plant foods. Dephytinisation by enzymatic application is identifed to be ideal approach, however the commercial availability of phytases from food sources is scarce. This prompted us to
undertake the investigation on the dephytinisation of the high phytate food matrices by utilising the indigenous phytase of
wheat. Attempts were made to enhance the phytase activity by various approaches. Phytase activity of wheat was increased
by fvefold on sprouting (96 h). The native phytase of wheat activated by incubation at optimum conditions of pH and temperature has shown an increase in the activity as a function of time. Isolation and partial purifcation of phytase from sprouted
wheat further increased the activity by 1.5 fold. Thermostability of phytase was enhanced by additives such as sodium citrate,
calcium chloride and magnesium sulphate. Addition of phytase activated wheat four to soya four enhanced the bioaccessible
iron by 1.7 fold. Partially purifed phytase enhanced the bioaccessible iron by 1.9 fold and zinc by 2.4 fold in defatted soya
four refecting dephytinisation. Investigation on complete purifcation of phytase are warranted.