Natural latex is an essential raw material for all kinds of industries especially for the manufacture of surgical gloves, condoms or tyres. Generally, the latex used in most countries are made from the the Hevea brasiliensis tree. The largest producers in the world are Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, three Asian countries that have practically the worldwide monopoly of this resource. Consecutively to find alternatives to this commercial dependence, in this research study natural latex was extracted from the Tapioca stem (Manihot Esculenta) cultivated in Malaysia. Fourier transforms infrared and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of samples confirmed that the latex are natural rubber, cis-1,4-polyisoprene. Gel-permeation chromatography revealed that the molecular size of the natural rubber from Tapioca tree is about 180 kD. Similar to rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) and guayule (Parthenium argentatum Gray), rubber in Tapioca tree is tightly associated with rubber particles. The rubber transferase in rubber particles exhibited a higher affinity for farnesyl pyrophosphate than for isopentenyl pyrophosphate, with apparent K(m) values of 2.6 and 226 microM, respectively. Examination of latex serum from Tapioca tree by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed major proteins of 24 and 48 kD in size, and several proteins with molecular mass below 20 and above 100 kD. Partial N-terminal amino acid sequencing and immunochemical analyses revealed that the 25- and 48-kD proteins were novel and not related to any other suggested rubber transferases. Other important properties such as total solid content, dry rubber content, alkalinity, potassium hydroxide number, stability and volatile fatty acid number have also studied. The results are much closed to the properties in Hevea Brasiliensis.