Studies on the Major Digestive Enzymes of a Herbivorous Fish Puntius javanicus

An attempt has been made to characterise the distribution pattern of digestive enzymes present in the digestive tract of Puntius javanicus. Adapting suitable assay method the crude enzyme extracts obtained from all major part of the digestive tract were analysed for various carbohydrases, proteases, esterases and phosphatases. The results were analysed statistically for the significance between various enzymes as well as the regions. Detection of fairly high amount of carbohydrases in oesophagus endorse the view that the oesophagus may also have an important role in digestion. The specific activity units mean values were taken to find out the significance among the regions. It emerged that almost all the enzymes present in all the regions were highly significant except the leucine amino peptidase.