Background: Plant biomass is an abundant and renewable carbon source that is recalcitrant towards both chemical and biochemical degradation. Xylan is the second most abundant polysaccharide in biomass after cellulose, and it possesses a variety of carbohydrate substitutions and non-carbohydrate decorations which can impede enzymatic degradation by glycoside hydrolases. Carbohydrate esterases are able to cleave the ester-linked decorations and thereby improve the accessibility of the xylan backbone to glycoside hydrolases, thus improving the degradation process. Enzymes comprising multiple catalytic glycoside hydrolase domains on the same polypeptide have previously been shown to exhibit intramolecular synergism during degradation of biomass. Similarly, natively fused carbohydrate esterase domains are encoded by certain bacteria, but whether these enzymes can result in similar synergistic boosts in biomass degradation has not previously been evaluated. Results: Two carbohydrate esterases with similar architectures, each comprising two distinct physically linked catalytic domains from families 1 (CE1) and 6 (CE6), were selected from xylan-targeting polysaccharide utilization loci (PULs) encoded by the Bacteroidetes species Bacteroides ovatus and Flavobacterium johnsoniae. The full-length enzymes as well as the individual catalytic domains showed activity on a range of synthetic model substrates, corn cob biomass, and Japanese beechwood biomass, with predominant acetyl esterase activity for the N-terminal CE6 domains and feruloyl esterase activity for the C-terminal CE1 domains. Moreover, several of the enzyme constructs were able to substantially boost the performance of a commercially available xylanase on corn cob biomass (close to twofold) and Japanese beechwood biomass (up to 20-fold). Interestingly, a significant improvement in xylanase biomass degradation was observed following addition of the full-length multidomain enzyme from B. ovatus versus the addition of its two separated single domains, indicating an intramolecular synergy between the esterase domains. Despite high sequence similarities between the esterase domains from B. ovatus and F. johnsoniae, their addition to the xylanolytic reaction led to different degradation patterns. Conclusion: We demonstrated that multidomain carbohydrate esterases, targeting the non-carbohydrate decorations on different xylan polysaccharides, can considerably facilitate glycoside hydrolase-mediated hydrolysis of xylan

BackgroundEnzymes display high reactivity and selectivity under natural conditions, but may suffer from decreased efficiency in industrial applications. A strategy to address this limitation is to immobilize the enzyme. Mesoporous silica materials offer unique properties as an immobilization support, such as high surface area and tunable pore size.ResultsThe performance of a commercially available feruloyl esterase, E-FAERU, immobilized on mesoporous silica by physical adsorption was evaluated for its transesterification ability. We optimized the immobilization conditions by varying the support pore size, the immobilization buffer and its pH. Maximum loading and maximum activity were achieved at different pHs (4.0 and 6.0 respectively). Selectivity, shown by the transesterification/hydrolysis products molar ratio, varied more than 3-fold depending on the reaction buffer used and its pH. Under all conditions studied, hydrolysis was the dominant activity of the enzyme. pH and water content had the greatest influence on the enzyme selectivity and activity. Determined kinetic parameters of the enzyme were obtained and showed that Km was not affected by the immobilization but kcat was reduced 10-fold when comparing the free and immobilized enzymes. Thermal and pH stabilities as well as the reusability were investigated. The immobilized biocatalyst retained more than 20% of its activity after ten cycles of transesterification reaction.ConclusionsThese results indicate that this enzyme is more suited for hydrolysis reactions than transesterification despite good reusability. Furthermore, it was found that the immobilization conditions are crucial for optimal enzyme activity as they can alter the enzyme performance.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12858-018-0091-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The mutation of D311 to tyrosine in endo-glycoceramidase II from Rhodococcus sp. and the use of a poorly recognized substrate, 2-chloro-4-nitrophenyl β-cellobioside, have provided appropriate conditions for the efficient synthesis of alkyl β-cellobioside derivatives. The mutant D311Y was characterized by a lowered K M value for the hydrolysis of 2-chloro-4nitrophenyl β-cellobioside and increased transglycosylation when using aliphatic 1,3-diols or alcohols bearing a δ-hydroxy ketone function as acceptors. Closer analysis revealed that the transglycosylation/hydrolysis ratio in reactions catalyzed by the mutant was completely inversed and weak secondary hydrolysis was postponed, thus providing the basis for high transglycosylation yields (between 68 and 93%). Overall, results confirm that the enhancement of transglycosylation in glycoside hydrolases can be achieved by a combination of destabilized transition states and increased recognition for acceptor molecules.

Heterologous protein production is widely used in industrial biotechnology. However, using non-native production hosts can lead to enzymes with altered post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation. We have investigated how production in a non-native host affects the physicochemical properties and enzymatic activity of a feruloyl esterase from Myceliophthora thermophila , Mt Fae1a. The enzyme was produced in two microorganisms that introduce glycosylation ( M. thermophila and Pichia pastoris ) and in Escherichia coli (non-glycosylated). Mass spectrometric analysis confirmed the presence of glycosylation and revealed differences in the lengths of glycan chains between the enzymes produced in M. thermophila and P. pastoris . The melting temperature and the optimal temperature for activity of the non-glycosylated enzyme were considerably lower than those of the glycosylated enzymes. The three Mt Fae1a versions also exhibited differences in specific activity and specificity. The catalytic efficiency of the glycosylated enzymes were more than 10 times higher than that of the non-glycosylated one. In biotechnology, immobilization is often used to allow reusing enzyme and was investigated on mesoporous silica particles. We found the binding kinetics and immobilization yield differed between the enzyme versions. The largest differences were observed when comparing enzymes with and without glycosylation, but significant variations were also observed between the two differently glycosylated enzymes. We conclude that the biotechnological value of an enzyme can be optimized for a specific application by carefully selecting the production host. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13568-019-0852-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.