Meso-Scale Modeling of Polysaccharides in Plant Cell Walls: An Application to Translation of CBMs on the Cellulose Surface. In: Nimlos MR, Crowley MF, editors. Computational Modeling in Lignocellulosic Biofuel Production. Washington: American Chemical Society; 2010. pp. 99-117. [DOI: 10.1021/bk-2010-1052.ch005]

Nanoscale Engineering of Designer Cellulosomes

Biocatalysts showcase the upper limit obtainable for high-speed molecular processing and transformation. Efforts to engineer functionality in synthetic nanostructured materials are guided by the increasing knowledge of evolving architectures, which enable controlled molecular motion and precise molecular recognition. The cellulosome is a biological nanomachine, which, as a fundamental component of the plant-digestion machinery from bacterial cells, has a key potential role in the successful development of environmentally-friendly processes to produce biofuels and fine chemicals from the breakdown of biomass waste. Here, the progress toward so-called "designer cellulosomes", which provide an elegant alternative to enzyme cocktails for lignocellulose breakdown, is reviewed. Particular attention is paid to rational design via computational modeling coupled with nanoscale characterization and engineering tools. Remaining challenges and potential routes to industrial application are put forward.

A coarse-grain force-field for xylan and its interaction with cellulose

We have built a coarse-grain (CG) model describing xylan and its interaction with crystalline cellulose surfaces. Each xylosyl or glucosyl unit was represented by a single grain. Our calculations rely on force-field parameters adapted from the atomistic description of short xylan fragments and their adsorption on cellulose. This CG model was first validated for xylan chains both isolated and in the bulk where a good match was found with its atomistic counterpart as well as with experimental measurements. A similar agreement was also found when short xylan fragments were adsorbed on the (110) surface of crystalline cellulose. The CG model, which was extended to the (100) and (1-10) surfaces, revealed that the adsorbed xylan, which was essentially extended in the atomistic situation, could also adopt coiled structures, especially when laying on the hydrophobic cellulose surfaces.