Commercial cellulase complexes produced by cellulolytic fungi contain enzyme activities that are capable of hydrolyzing non-cellulosic polysaccharides in biomass, primarily hemicellulose and pectins, in addition to cellulose. However, xylanase activities detected in most commercial enzyme preparations have been shown to be insufficient to completely hydrolyze xylan, resulting in high xylooligom...

An extracellular thermostable xylanase produced by Saccharopolyspora pathumthaniensis S582 was purified 167-fold to homogeneity with a recovery yield of 12%. The purified xylanase appeared as a single protein band on SDS-PAGE, with a molecular mass of 36 kDa. The optimal temperature and pH of the xylanase were 70 °C and 6.5. The enzyme was stable within a pH range of 5.5-10.0. It retained its a...

Xylanases catalyze the hydrolysis of plant hemicellulose xylan into oligosaccharides by cleaving the main-chain glycosidic linkages connecting xylose subunits. To study ligand binding and to understand how the pH constrains the activity of the enzyme, variants of the Trichoderma reesei xylanase were designed to either abolish its activity (E177Q) or to change its pH optimum (N44H). An E177Q-xyl...

Xylan is the major component of monocotyledon hemicelluloses of plant cell walls in which 13-1,4-linked D-xylose residues constitute the backbone of xylan. After cellulose, xylan is the most abundant renewable polysaccharide in nature, accounting for 20 to 30% of the dry weight of woody tissue. In order to maximize the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic residues by cellulase enzymes, synergistic act...

The effects of cellulose crystallinity, hemicellulose, and lignin on the enzymatic hydrolysis of Miscanthus sinensis to monosaccharides were investigated. A air-dried biomass was ground by ball-milling, and the powder was separated into four fractions by passage through a series of sieves with mesh sizes 250-355 microm, 150-250 microm, 63-150 microm, and <63 microm. Each fraction was hydrolyzed...

Bacterial strain Bacillus tequilensis BT21 isolated from marine sediments was found to produce extracellular xylanase. The xynBT21 gene encoding xylanase enzyme was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The gene encoded a protein consisting of 213 amino acid residues with calculated molecular mass of 23.3 kDa. Purified recombinant xylanase had optimum activity at 60 °C and pH=6. The enzyme w...

Xylanase (EC 3. 2. 1. 8), hydrolyzes xylo-oligosaccharides into D-xylose and required for complete hydrolysis of native cellulose and biomass conversion. It has broad range of applications in the pulp and paper, pharmaceutical and Agri-food industries. Fifty fungal species were isolated from the fouled soil around an oil refinery and screened for the production of xylanase enzyme by enrichment ...

BACKGROUND Acetylation of the xylan backbone was a major obstacle to enzymatic decomposition. Removal of acetyl groups by acetyl xylan esterases (AXEs) is essential for completely enzymatic hydrolysis of xylan. Appended carbohydrate binding modules (CBMs) can promote the enzymatic deconstruction of plant cell walls by targeting and proximity effects. Fungal acetyl xylan esterases are strictly a...

Recombinant DNA technologies enable the direct isolation and expression of novel genes from biotopes containing complex consortia of uncultured microorganisms. In this study, genomic libraries were constructed from microbial DNA isolated from insect intestinal tracts from the orders Isoptera (termites) and Lepidoptera (moths). Using a targeted functional assay, these environmental DNA libraries...

BACKGROUND In the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials, thermostable enzymes decrease the amount of enzyme needed due to higher specific activity and elongate the hydrolysis time due to improved stability. For cost-efficient use of enzymes in large-scale industrial applications, high-level expression of enzymes in recombinant hosts is usually a prerequisite. The main aim of the present study...