Comparative Evaluation of Computational and Experimental Analysis of Polyphenol Oxidase from Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.)

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is a cash crop of huge economic significance in the world and the key raw material for chocolate manufacturing. Polyphenol oxidases (PPOs) are copper containing oxidoreductases that catalyze the hydroxylation and oxidation of phenolic compounds in the presence of molecular oxygen. The PPO presence and activity during fermentation and drying of cocoa beans is responsible for the development of flavor precursors. In this study, bioinformatics analysisof PPO from cocoa was done using standard bioinformatics tools such as Blastp, Hmmer, ClustalO, OMABrowser, EMBOSS and Swissmodel. The result showed that cocoa PPO homologs include Citrus sinensis, Populus euphratica, Gossypium raimondii, Litchi chinensis, Dimocarpuslongan, Canarium album, while the orthologsobtainedinclude Sorghum bicolor, Zea may, Manihot esculenta and Vitis vinifera among others.PPO of Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) was found to be a distant homolog of cocoa PPO, and that this evolutionary relationship implicated Witches’ Broom Disease (WBD). The computed physicochemical properties were in alignment with the experimental results. Keywords: Polyphenol Oxidase, Cocoa, Theobroma cacao L., Computational Analysis, Experimental Analysis.