Cavendish banana (Musa Cavendishi, subgroup AAA) remains green upon ripening at tropical temperature (25-30 degrees C), due to incomplete degradation of chlorophyll (Chl). Earlier, evidence for the existence of two distinct degradative pathways--chlorophyllase and chlorophyll oxidase pathways in these bananas was provided. Here, an attempt has been made to understand further the mechanism of inhibition of Chl degradation at different stages of ripening and detecting various enzyme activities by partial purification. Soluble and Triton-solubilized protein fractions obtained from peel acetone powder from green-unripe, green-ripe and yellow-ripe bananas efficiently degraded Chl a. About 2-fold increase in Chl hydrolyzing/oxidizing and magnesium-dechelatase activities was observed in ripe, as compared to green-unripe bananas. The electrophoretic pattern of the soluble and detergent-solubilized proteins from the three stages of ripening revealed that the latter fraction contained only three slow moving proteins, which were found to be glycoproteins, as revealed in PAS staining. The soluble enzyme fraction contained all other bands along with the above three bands, as observed in the Native-PAGE of DEAE-Sepharose purified fractions. Only soluble fraction from 'green-ripe' bananas, catalyzed formation of an unknown intermediate (retention time 8.6 min), which was formed by the action of Triton-solubilized enzyme fractions, obtained from 'green-unripe' and 'yellow-ripe' bananas. The enzyme responsible for the formation of this intermediate might be involved in the stay-green character and could be a component of Chl oxidase pathway. Partial purification of soluble protein fraction by DEAE-Sepharose showed the presence of chlorophyllase, magnesium-dechelatase, pheophorbide a oxygenase, red fluorescent catabolite reductase and Chl oxidase. Native PAGE of pooled fractions showed separation of proteins in different bands. Pooled fractions IV and VI showed the presence of a single major band, resulting in almost a homogenous preparation in a single step. Fraction IV catalyzed dechelation of Mg by Mg-dechelatase, while fraction VI catalyzed the formation of 132-OH-Chl a by chlorophyll oxidase. Chlorophyll oxidase activity was stimulated by linolenic acid, indicating involvement of lipoxygenase in oxidative Chl degradation, thereby resulting in the formation of 13(2)-OH-Chl a as product. The results show the presence of various enzymes of chlorophyllase and chlorophyll oxidase pathways in soluble enzyme fraction.