Immobilized cellulases for cellulose utilization

Immobilization of Fungal Cellulases Highlighting β-Glucosidase: Techniques, Supports, Chemical, and Physical Changes

β-Glucosidase is widely used in several industrial segments, among which we can highlight the pharmaceutical industry, beverages, biofuels, animal feed production, and the textile industry. The great applicability of this enzyme, associated with the high cost of its production, justifies the need to find ways to make its use economically viable on an industrial scale. Through enzyme immobilization, the biocatalyst can be reused more than once, without great impact on its catalytic activity, and higher operational and storage stabilities can be achieved as compared to the free form. Accordingly, this review brings information about different techniques and supports that have been studied in the immobilization of cellulases with a focus on β-glucosidase, as well as the application of these immobilized systems to supplement commercial mixtures.

CFD Simulations of Microreactors for the Hydrolysis of Cellobiose to Glucose by β-Glucosidase Enzyme

The enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass-derived compounds represents a valid strategy to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, with geopolitical and environmental benefits. In particular, β-glucosidase (BG) enzyme is the bottleneck in the degradation of cellulose because it catalyzes the hydrolysis of cellobiose, a known inhibitor of the other cellulolytic enzymes. However, free enzymes are unstable, expensive and difficult to recover. For this reason, the immobilization of BG on a suitable support is crucial to improve its catalytic performance. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to test the hydrolysis reaction in a monolith channel coated by BG adsorbed on a wrinkled silica nanoparticles (WSNs) washcoat. We initially defined the physical properties of the mixture, the parameters related to kinetics and mass transfers and the initial and boundary conditions thanks to our preliminary experimental tests. Numerical simulation results have shown great similarity with the experimental ones, demonstrating the validity of this model. Following this, it was possible to explore in real time the behavior of the system, varying other specified parameters (i.e., the mixture inlet velocity or the enzymatic load on the reactor surface) without carrying out other experimental analyses.

Immobilization of Cellulolytic Enzymes in Mesostructured Silica Materials

Mesostructured silica nanoparticles offer a unique opportunity in the field of biocatalysis thanks to their outstanding properties. The tunable pore size in the range of mesopores allows for immobilizing bulky enzyme molecules. The large surface area improves the catalytic efficiency by increasing enzyme loading and finely dispersing the biocatalyst molecules. The easily tunable pore morphology allows for creating a proper environment to host an enzyme. The confining effect of mesopores can improve the enzyme stability and its resistance to extreme pH and temperatures. Benefits also arise from other peculiarities of nanoparticles such as Brownian motion and easy dispersion. Fossil fuel depletion and environmental pollution have led to the need for alternative sustainable and renewable energy sources such as biofuels. In this context, lignocellulosic biomass has been considered as a strategic fuel source. Cellulases are a class of hydrolytic enzymes that convert cellulose into fermentable sugars. This review is intended to survey the immobilization of cellulolytic enzymes (cellulases and β-glucosidase) onto mesoporous silica nanoparticles and their catalytic performance, with the aim to give a contribution to the urgent action required against climate change and its impacts, by biorefineries’ development.

Matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation of β-glucosidase from a dopa/quinone target

β-glucosidase (BG) plays a key role in determining the efficiency of the enzymatic complex cellulase for the degradation of cellulose into sugars. It hydrolyses the cellobiose, an inhibitor of the enzymatic complex. Therefore, the immobilization of BG is a great challenge for the industrial application of cellulases. Cellulases usually contains a BG amount insufficient to avoid inhibition by cellobiose. Here the BG was immobilized by matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE) technique. The frozen matrix was composed of water, water/m-DOPA and water/m-DOPA/quinone. The effect of the excipients on the final conformation of the enzyme after the MAPLE processing was determined. The enzyme secondary structure was studied by FTIR analysis. The catalytic performances of the deposited films were tested in the cellobiose hydrolysis reaction. The results demonstrate that the presence of the oxidized form of m-DOPA, the O-quinone form, can protect the protein native structure, with the laser inducing little or no damage. In fact, only the samples deposited from this target preserved the secondary structure of the polypeptide chain and allowed a complete hydrolysis of cellobiose for four consecutive runs, showing a high operational stability of the biocatalyst.

Artificial intelligence techniques to optimize the EDC/NHS-mediated immobilization of cellulase on Eudragit L-100

Two artificial intelligence techniques, namely artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA) were combined to be used as a tool for optimizing the covalent immobilization of cellulase on a smart polymer, Eudragit L-100. 1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethyllaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) concentration, N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) concentration and coupling time were taken as independent variables, and immobilization efficiency was taken as the response. The data of the central composite design were used to train ANN by back-propagation algorithm, and the result showed that the trained ANN fitted the data accurately (correlation coefficient R² = 0.99). Then a maximum immobilization efficiency of 88.76% was searched by genetic algorithm at a EDC concentration of 0.44%, NHS concentration of 0.37% and a coupling time of 2.22 h, where the experimental value was 87.97 ± 6.45%. The application of ANN based optimization by GA is quite successful.

Enhanced cellulose degradation by targeted integration of a cohesin-fused β-glucosidase into the Clostridium thermocellum cellulosome

The conversion of recalcitrant plant-derived cellulosic biomass into biofuels is dependent on highly efficient cellulase systems that produce near-quantitative levels of soluble saccharides. Similar to other fungal and bacterial cellulase systems, the multienzyme cellulosome system of the anaerobic, cellulolytic bacterium Clostridium thermocellum is strongly inhibited by the major end product cellobiose. Cellobiose-induced inhibition can be relieved via its cleavage to noninhibitory glucose by the addition of exogenous noncellulosomal enzyme β-glucosidase; however, because the cellulosome is adsorbed to the insoluble substrate only a fraction of β-glucosidase would be available to the cellulosome. Towards this end, we designed a chimeric cohesin-fused β-glucosidase (BglA-CohII) that binds directly to the cellulosome through an unoccupied dockerin module of its major scaffoldin subunit. The β-glucosidase activity is thus focused at the immediate site of cellobiose production by the cellulosomal enzymes. BglA-CohII was shown to retain cellobiase activity and was readily incorporated into the native cellulosome complex. Surprisingly, it was found that the native C. thermocellum cellulosome exists as a homooligomer and the high-affinity interaction of BglA-CohII with the scaffoldin moiety appears to dissociate the oligomeric state of the cellulosome. Complexation of the cellulosome and BglA-CohII resulted in higher overall degradation of microcrystalline cellulose and pretreated switchgrass compared to the native cellulosome alone or in combination with wild-type BglA in solution. These results demonstrate the effect of enzyme targeting and its potential for enhanced degradation of cellulosic biomass.

Characterization and immobilization of liposome-bound cellulase for hydrolysis of insoluble cellulose

The liposome-bound cellulase was prepared by covalently coupling cellulase with the enzyme-free liposomes bearing aldehyde groups so that cellulase was located solely on the outer membrane of liposomes. The modified cellulase possessed the higher activity efficiency and lipid-based specific activity than the cellulase-containing liposomes reported previously. The enzyme-free liposomes bearing aldehyde groups were covalently immobilized with the chitosan gel beads and the free cellulase was coupled with the treated gel beads to prepare the immobilized liposome-bound cellulase. The activity efficiency of the immobilized liposome-bound cellulase was much higher than that of the conventionally immobilized cellulase. The results on reusability of the immobilized liposome-bound cellulase in the hydrolysis of either soluble or insoluble cellulose showed that the immobilized liposome-bound cellulase had the higher remaining cellulase activity and reusability than the conventionally immobilized cellulase for the hydrolysis of either type of cellulose. The liposomal membrane was suggested to be efficient in maintaining the cellulase activity during the hydrolysis.

Hydrolysis of rice hull by crosslinked Aspergillus niger cellulase

A. niger cellulase was crosslinked by glutaraldehyde to obtain a heat-stable enzyme preparation for rice hull cellulose hydrolysis. Under optimized crosslinking conditions of 0.12 M glutaraldehyde, pH 7.0, temperature 40 degrees C and at 45 min of crosslinking, a preparation having 15% more activity than free enzyme was obtained which also had considerable improvement in heat stability at 65 degrees C and 70 degrees C. Whereas the free enzyme lost 80% of its activity in 4 h at 65 degrees C, the crosslinked preparation lost only 30% activity. The crosslinked preparation hydrolyzed cellulosic biomass more effectively giving 2.2 mg/ml glucose and 52% corresponding saccharification in 4 h at 65 degrees C as compared to 14% saccharification by free enzyme under similar conditions.

High frequency one-step gene replacement in Trichoderma reesei. II. Effects of deletions of individual cellulase genes

Four cellulase genes of Trichoderma reesei, cbh1, cbh2, egl1 and egl2, have been replaced by the amdS marker gene. When linear DNA fragments and flanking regions of the corresponding cellulase locus of more than 1 kb were used, the replacement frequencies were high, ranging from 32 to 52%. Deletion of the major cellobiohydrolase 1 gene led to a 2-fold increase in the production of cellobiohydrolase II; however, replacement of the cbh2 gene did not affect the final cellulase levels and deletion of egl1 or egl2 slightly increased production of both cellobiohydrolases. Based on our results, endoglucanase II accounts for most of the endoglucanase activity produced by the hypercellulolytic host strain. Furthermore, loss of the egl2 gene causes a significant drop in the filter paper-hydrolysing activity, indicating that endoglucanase II has an important role in the total hydrolysis of cellulose.