Cellulases and hemicellulases of the anaerobic fungus Piromyces constitute a multiprotein cellulose-binding complex and are encoded by multigene families

Fungal protein production: design and production of chimeric proteins

For more than a century, filamentous fungi have been used for the production of a wide variety of endogenous enzymes of industrial interest. More recently, with the use of genetic engineering tools developed for these organisms, this use has expanded for the production of nonnative heterologous proteins. In this review, an overview is given of examples describing the production of a special class of these proteins, namely chimeric proteins. The production of two types of chimeric proteins have been explored: (a) proteins grafted for a specific substrate-binding domain and (b) fusion proteins containing two separate enzymatic activities. Various application areas for the use of these chimeric proteins are described.

Cellulosomes: highly efficient nanomachines designed to deconstruct plant cell wall complex carbohydrates

Cellulosomes can be described as one of nature's most elaborate and highly efficient nanomachines. These cell bound multienzyme complexes orchestrate the deconstruction of cellulose and hemicellulose, two of the most abundant polymers on Earth, and thus play a major role in carbon turnover. Integration of cellulosomal components occurs via highly ordered protein:protein interactions between cohesins and dockerins, whose specificity allows the incorporation of cellulases and hemicellulases onto a molecular scaffold. Cellulosome assembly promotes the exploitation of enzyme synergism because of spatial proximity and enzyme-substrate targeting. Recent structural and functional studies have revealed how cohesin-dockerin interactions mediate both cellulosome assembly and cell-surface attachment, while retaining the spatial flexibility required to optimize the catalytic synergy within the enzyme complex. These emerging advances in our knowledge of cellulosome function are reviewed here.