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Home > Worthington > Introduction |
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Enzymes are still the major product of Worthington.
Technically speaking, Worthington does not actually make enzymes : we extract them
from various animal and plant tissues and various microbial sources such as bacteria,
fungi, and molds. A starting material for a particular enzyme is selected according
to the prevalence of that enzyme in the material.
For example an enzyme whose function involves making muscles
work is going to be found primarily in muscle tissue, so the
starting material may be rabbit muscle or perhaps pig heart ; |
an enzyme involved in fermentation can best be found in the
yeast. Some of the animal tissues used at Worthington include
beef pancreas, electric eel tissue, hog kidney, cow eyes, horse
liver, rabbit muscle, beef horseradish roots, sweet potatoes,
almonds, and pokeweed. Some products are isolated from the
bacteria E.coli, several species of Clostridia, and various other
bacteria. Yeast, mushrooms, whole milk, and eggs are also used.
The most important feature of each of our products is that it functions just as it would
in the living cells from which it was extracted. |
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The size and complexity of protein molecules make this difficult, and Worthington¡¯s
ability to consistently produce enzymes and other proteins in their natural condition is
the key to the company¡¯s continuing success. |
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The most fundamental consideration is that anything which is detrimental to the life of
the cells with which we are working is also bad for the product we are trying to extract
from those cells. Many isolation procedures we use rely on techniques which alter the
solubility of proteins.
Differences in solubility among different proteins makes it
possible to separate proteins from one another through
centrifugation and filtering: |
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a method known as a way of
changing protein solubility without damaging the molecules ;
consequently, most of the waste generated consists of meat
scraps, cell debris, fats, and various non-toxic salts such as
sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate.
The toxic compounds often associated with the chemical
industry are precisely those substances we must avoid like
lead, mercury, and many of the organic compounds used for
plastics and petroleum products.
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