REVIEW ARTICLE


Exploitation of for the Heterologous Production of Cellulases and Hemicellulases



S.H. Rose, W.H. van Zyl*
Department of Microbiology, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa


Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
15
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 1804
Abstract HTML Views: 1840
PDF Downloads: 1118
Total Views/Downloads: 4762
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 863
Abstract HTML Views: 1022
PDF Downloads: 739
Total Views/Downloads: 2624



Creative Commons License
© 2008 Rose and Zyl

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Microbiology, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa; E-mail: WHVZ@sun.ac.za


Abstract

Filamentous fungi of the group are native soil saprophytic fungi. Industrial strains of this group have been extensively used for the production of plant degrading enzymes for the food and beverage, animal feed and paper-and-pulp industries. Recombinant DNA technology allows for the overproduction of these enzymes in copious amounts. The advantages and limitations of A. niger as recombinant host for enzyme production are briefly discussed. Specific attention is devoted to the overproduction of several cellulases and hemicellulases to high homogeneity in the protease-deficient strain A. niger D15. The size, temperature and pH optima of the heterologous enzymes were shown to be similar to that of their natively produced counter parts. The optimization of enzyme production in dilute sugar cane molasses, using a recombinant strain producing the xylanase II of Trichoderma reesei as example, was also demonstrated.

Keywords: Aspergillus niger, heterologous expression, cellulase, xylanase, mannanase.