Question

Why are we expecting the specific activity of an enzyme to increase during the course of fractionation?

Answer 1

The specific activity of an enzyme increases during fractionation. This is because of the fact that the enzyme purity increases in each step.

Specific activity is measured in terms of activity per mg of protein. A crude sample contains many proteins along with the desired enzyme. SO, the fraction of an enzyme in a crude sample is low. As the purification process proceeds, the fraction of the enzyme in the sample increases. Hence we can expect the specific activity to increase.