Team:Osaka/Project cellulase

Cellulase

In order to create a practical system for Continuous Greening, our micro-organisms have to gain nutrients from dry and poor soil. Therefore we took attention at the planted woods. Microbes particularly decompose dead wood into their own nutrients and thrust by themselves. Wood fibers are made of cellulose, hemi-cellulose, and lignin. Of those, cellulose dominates most of parts. The advantage of cellulose is that it made of 1→4 liked D-glucose; therefore if we can break β bonds between them, our microbes can gain precious nutrients in dry area. Consequently, we focused on degradation of cellulose by secretion of cellulase. Several different enzymes are known as cellulase; endo-glucanase breaks internal bonds in cellulose and exo-glucanse breaks cellulose bonds from exposed ends results in disaccharide called cellobiose. In addition, β-gluctocidase which tears cellobiose into glucose is needed to obtain the final object. We aim to produce these enzymes from our microbe.