Study on cocoonase, sericin, and degumming of silk cocoon: computational and experimental

Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

Table 1 Degumming effect of cocoonase on cocoon sheet for 1 h at 42 °C

Treatment	Negative Control	Enzymatic degumming	Alkaline degumming
Sample	Cocoon sheet + buffer	Cocoon sheet + buffer + collected cocoonase	Cocoon sheet + Na₂CO₃ + buffer
Cocoon sheet weight added to each tube	30 mg	30 mg	30 mg
Cocoon sheet weight after complete drying at 70 °C (W₀)	28.5 mg	28.8 mg	28.3 mg
Cocoon sheet weight after respective treatments at 42 °C (W₁)	27.7 mg	26.9 mg	26.2 mg
\( \mathrm{Degumming}\ \mathrm{ratio}\ \left(\%\right)=\frac{100\left({\mathrm{W}}_0-{\mathrm{W}}_1\right)}{{\mathrm{W}}_0} \)	2.80	6.59	7.42

(1) Negative Control, i.e., cocoon sheet was treated with buffer only. Percentage loss of sericin in terms of decrease in cocoon sheet weight after the respective treatment was calculated. (2) Natural cocoonase degumming, i.e., cocoon sheet was treated with collected crude cocoonase enzyme. (3) Alkaline degumming, i.e., cocoon sheet was treated with Na₂CO₃