A Study of the Digestive Gland's Glucosidases and? -Amylase in Citrus Brown Snail, Caucasotachea lencoranea (Stylommatophora: Helicidae)

The snail Caucasotachea lencoranea Mousson is a pest of citrus in the north provinces of Iran. In order to adopt a better control of the pest and develop optimal management strategies, an understanding of the digestive enzymes’ function is inevitable. Snails were collected from some citrus orchards in the northern provinces of the country and digestive carbohydrases including? -glucosidase,? -glucosidase and? -amylase were investigated. For preparation of the enzyme extract from the digestive system, snails were dissected and the whole digestive glands removed. Results indicated that? -,? - glucosidase and? -amylase were present in the digestive gland of the pest. Optimum pH for? - glucosidase activity was obtained in the range of 4-5 and for? -glucosidase at 5-6. Optimum temperatures for? -glucosidase and? – glucosidase activity were recorded as 35?C and 40?C respectively. Optimum pH for? -amylase activity was 2 while the optimum temperature recorded as 40?C. Km and Vmax values of 9.84 mM and 0.11 mM/min were obtained for? -glucosidase respectively. The values of Km and Vmax for? -glucosidase were 10.48 mM and 0.0421mM/min respectively.