Novelties of the cellulolytic system of a marine bacterium applicable to cellulosic sugar production

Abstract

The saprophytic marine bacterium Saccharophagus degradans is capable of degrading whole plant material by releasing sugars through the coordinated expression of carbohydrases. The genome sequence of this bacterium indicates the presence of complex carbohydrase systems whose biochemical activities and regulation are being explored. This review summarizes the novelties of these carbohydrase systems that are most applicable to biofuel production. Multi-enzyme systems were shown to be expressed by this bacterium to process the cellulose, hemicellulose and pectic polymers of plant cell walls. The metabolism of these polymers of the bacterium and application to biomass processing are discussed.

Acknowledgements

We thank Brian Watson for his critical comments on the manuscript and Ron Weiner for his pioneering studies on this bacterium.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The academic research of Steven Hutcheson was supported by grant DEB0621297 from the National Science Foundation. All coauthors have an affiliation with Zymetis, Inc as an employee, affiliate, shareholder and/or stock option holder. Research at Zymetis, Inc. is focused on the commercialization of enzymes produced by Saccharophagus degradans and has been supported by awards from the US Department of Energy, Maryland Industrial Partnerships, Maryland Biotechnology Center Biotechnology Commercialization Award, Maryland Proof of Concept Alliance, and the US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center Cooperative Research and Development Program. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.