Description
Amylase was first measured quantitatively by an iodometric method introduced by Wohlegemuth in 1908. Somogyi introduced a procedure in
1938 that standardized the amounts of starch and iodine. His work became the basis for the widely-used Amyloclastic and Saccharogenic
methods introduced in 1956 and 1960 respectively. Disadvantages of these methods included long incubation times, endogenous glucose
interference, and unstable reaction colors resulting in poor reproducibility and reliability. Rinderknecht et al introduced a dye-coupled starch
method in 1967 that was relatively simple to perform. However, the procedure used an insoluble substrate, lacked linearity, and still required
centrifugation or filtration.Turbidimetric procedures have been introduced that are relatively fast but they require special instrumentation and
have difficulty producing stable and reproducible starch solutions.Several enzymatic procedures have been suggested including one that
used the defined substrate maltotetraose. These methods represented significant improvement in amylase measurement, but were still subject
to relatively long pre-incubation times, possible endogenous glucose interference, and a series of other potential interferences with the
formation
