Novel enzymatic assay for determination of alkyl polyglycosides with short chain fatty alcohols.

An enzymatic assay has been developed for the quantitative detection of alkyl polyglycosides after enzymatic hydrolysis with different carbohydrolases. A three-step enzymatic method was used for the quantification of alkyl polyglycosides. In the first step the enzymatic hydrolysis of alkyl polyglycosides was performed with different carbohydrolases, or an acid hydrolysis was used. The second step was quantification of free glucose with an enzyme electrode, which was covered with an immobilized glucose oxidase membrane; glucose was used as standard. The last step was the enzymatic quantification of fatty alcohols, which are the second substrate after enzymatic hydrolysis of alkyl polyglycosides. Surprisingly, the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase ADH (E.C. 1.1.1.1) from bakers' yeast could efficiently oxidize a wide variety of aliphatic alcohols and had the highest catalytic specificity with short and medium fatty alcohol substrates, including octanol and decanol.