Oxidative enzyme

An oxidative enzyme is an enzyme that catalyses an oxidation reaction. Two most common types of oxidative enzymes are peroxidases, which use hydrogen peroxide, and oxidases, which use molecular oxygen.[1][2] They increase the rate at which ATP is produced aerobically.

Polymerisation of coniferyl alcohol to lignin. The reaction has two alternative routes catalysed by two different oxidative enzymes, peroxidases or oxidases.

Oxidative enzymes are responsible for the browning of fruits like apples. When the surface of apples are exposed to the oxygen in the air, the oxidative enzymes like polyphenol oxidase and catechol oxidase oxidize the fruit (electrons are lost to the air). Such browning can be prevented by cooking the fruit or lowering the pH (which destroys, inactivates, or denatures the enzyme) or by preventing oxygen from getting to the surface (such as by covering the fruit).

References

1. Eric J. Toone (2006). Advances in Enzymology and Related Areas of Molecular Biology, Protein Evolution (Volume 75 ed.). Wiley-Interscience. ISBN 0471205036.
2. Nicholas C. Price; Lewis Stevens (1999). Fundamentals of Enzymology: The Cell and Molecular Biology of Catalytic Proteins (Third ed.). USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019850229X.