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What protease in particular does avocado contain? I've been searching everywhere for it on the internet and still couldn't find any answers.

jscs
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Zohaib Hafiz
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    Is your interest biological, or does the question relate to cooking somehow? As written this is probably off-topic for the site. – logophobe Mar 30 '18 at 18:22
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    @logophobe actually, proteases in fruit have culinary aspects, so the question is fine. – rumtscho Mar 30 '18 at 19:50
  • From what I can find, the protease is cysteine, a thiol protease. While they are generally known to have meat tenderizing properties from some fruits such as pineapple of papaya, like @Sobachatina I can't find any reference to the use of avocado. – Cindy Mar 30 '18 at 20:01
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    @Cindy Cysteine by itself is an amino acid. "Cysteine proteases", though, are a general class of proteases identical to "thiol proteases" (because the active portion of the enzyme is the thiol bit of a cysteine amino acid). All cells contain cysteine proteases, as they're used for general housekeeping, but normally at such low levels that they don't have a culinary impact. – R.M. Mar 30 '18 at 22:36
  • @ZohaibHafiz If you're wondering about the browning of avocados, that's not a protease, but a [different enzyme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_browning). – R.M. Mar 30 '18 at 22:37
  • @R.M. *Cystine* is an amino acid. – Cindy Mar 31 '18 at 08:50
  • @Cindy *[Cysteine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine)* is an amino acid. *[Cystine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystine)* is two cysteines linked together. (Also arguably an amino acid itself, but normally thought of as two amino acid molecules linked together.) – R.M. Mar 31 '18 at 14:04

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The culinary impact of proteases are to tenderize meat and that, if uncooked, they will prevent gelatin from setting.

I have not heard of, and was unable to find, any recipe using avocados for meat tenderization. I was easily able to find many recipes that use fresh avocado with gelatin.

Therefore, I don't believe avocados contain any proteases that are of culinary concern.

Sobachatina
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  • As further evidence, [this paper](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00021369.1982.10865376) showed that avocado juice had no detectable gelatinolytic activity at pH 5.6. – canadianer Mar 31 '18 at 00:03