Abstract

Enzymatic unhairing is a cleaner production method. However, the main difficulty which hinders the utilization of protease in unhairing is the injury to skin caused by the protease. In this article, a collagenase was purified from the protease (2709). The particular collagenase is a metalloprotease which is inhibited by EDTA. On the other hand, 2709 itself is a serine protease which is insensitive to EDTA. A way to reduce the injury to skin was put forward. When 10mM EDTA is added to crude enzyme solutions of 2709, the protease (2709) retains 90.5% of the proteolytic activity, and the unhairing capacity of 2709 has little loss. At the same time, 2709 loses 66.9% of the collagenolytic activity since the collagenase is inhibited by EDTA. Therefore, the injury to skin will be reduced.