Different types of meat tenderizers has wide ranging commercial applications in the leather, cosmetic, textiles, detergents, food and pharmaceutical industries. In the food industry, papain is used as an active ingredient in many commercial meat tenderizers. The amino acid numbers are based on the mature peptide. The mechanism by which papain breaks peptide bonds involves the use of a catalytic dyad with a deprotonated cysteine.
A nearby Asn-175 helps to orient the imidazole ring of His-159 to allow it to deprotonate the catalytic Cys-25. Anthelmintic effect of papain on the worm Heligmosomoides bakeri. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Papain breaks down tough meat fibres, and has been used since before European contact to tenderise meat eaten in its native South America. Meat tenderisers in powder form with papain as an active component are widely sold and the culinary use of papaya peel has featured in research papers.
Papain can be used to dissociate cells in the first step of cell culture preparations. After ten minutes, the tissue should be treated with a protease inhibitor solution to stop the protease action. It is also used as an ingredient in various enzymatic debriding preparations, notably Accuzyme. These are used in the care of some chronic wounds to clean up dead tissue.