Cellulases in bi-phasic media

Nowadays, cellulases are considered with great interest by White Biotechnology industry [1]. Indeed, these enzymes are easy to produce at industrial scale, easy to use and present promising route for second generation biofuels. The catalytic activity of common cellulases is well known i.e. optimal pH, temperature, etc [2]. Many possible substrates were also already tested [3]. However, only little work, at our knowledge, was done on cellulases activity in non-aqueous media [4].

We present here a study of enzymatic activity of three different commercial cellulases from A. niger, Aspergillus sp. and Trichoderma virens in various biphasic, organic solvent / buffer, conditions.

We found that the A. niger cellulases had the best catalytic activity in a biphasic media containing up to 75 % of chloroform phase. In this case up to 40 g/L cellulose contained in buffer phase can be transformed in 4 hours by 10 g/L overall enzyme.

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1. a) Lin Y., Tanaka S., Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 2006, 69-6, 627; b) Percival Zhang Y.H., Himmel M.E., Mielenz J.R., Biotechnol. Adv., 2006, 24-5, 452
2. a) Castellanos O.F., Sinitsyn A.P., Vlasenko E.Yu., Bioressource Technology, 1995, 52, 119; b) Duff S.J.B., Cooper D.G., Fuller O.M., Enzyme Microb. Technol., 1986, 8, 305
3. a) Claeyssens M., Aerts G., Bioressource Technology, 1992, 39, 143; b) Walker L.P., Wilson D.B., Irwin D.C., Enzyme Microb. Technol., 1990, 12, 378; c) Castellanos O.F., Sinitsyn A.P., Vlasenko E.Yu., Bioressource Technology, 1995, 52, 109;
4. a) Chen N., Fan J.B., Xiang J., ChenJ., Liang Y., Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 2006, 1764-6, 1029; b) Woodward C.A., Kaufman E.N., Biotechnol. Bioeng., 1996, 52-3, 423; c) Kilpeläinen I., Xie H., King A., Granstrom M., Heikkinen S., Argyropoulos D.S., J. Agric. Food Chem., 2007, 55-22, 9142