Acetivibrio cellulolyticus, an isolate from an established sewage sludge culture, degraded cellulose powder, Avicel cellulose, and cellobiose. The organism showed maximum cellulose degradation in a medium containing 10 g/L of cellulose and it could also degrade cellulose in media containing up to 75 g/L of cellulose. During the exponential growth phase, large quantities of cellulolytic enzymes were found extracellularly whereas cellobiase activity was cell associated. The crude culture supernate contained endo- and exo-glucanase activities with a pH optimum at 5.0 and a temperature optimum at 50 °C. Maximum cellulase activities were detected in 2- to 3-day-old cultures grown on 1 g/L of cellulose. Cellulose concentration above 10 g/L caused the adsorption of these enzymes to the substrate and consequently lowered their detection in the supernate. The activities at 50 °C for endoglucanase, exoglucanase, and filter paper degrading ability, expressed as micrograms of glucose equivalents released per minute per milligram of protein culture supernate, were 510, 135, and 40 respectively.
The synergistic actions of hydrolytic genes reveal the mechanism of Trichoderma harzianum for cellulose degradation
