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Holocellulose structures from agro-industrial residues rely on main and side chain attacking enzymes with different specificities for complete hydrolysis. Combinations of crude enzymatic extracts from different fungal species, including Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus oryzae, Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma longibrachiatum, were applied to sugar cane bagasse, banana stem and dirty cotton residue to investigate the hydrolysis of holocellulose structures. A. terreus and A. oryzae were the best producers of FPase and xylanase activities. A combination of A. terreus and A. oryzae extracts in a 50% proportion provided optimal hydrolysis of dirty cotton residue and banana stem. For the hydrolysis of sugar cane bagasse, the best results were obtained with samples only containing A. terreus crude extract.

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Sugarcane bagasse was used as an inexpensive alternative carbon source for production of β-xylanases from Aspergillus terreus. The induction profile showed that the xylanase activity was detected from the 6th day of cultivation period. Two low molecular weight enzymes, named Xyl T1 and Xyl T2 were purified to apparent homogeneity by ultrafiltration, gel filtration and ion exchange chromatographies and presented molecular masses of 24.3and 23.60 kDa, as determined by SDS-PAGE, respectively. Xyl T1 showed highest activity at 50 °C and pH 6.0, while Xyl T2 was most active at 45 °C and pH 5.0. Mass spectrometry analysis of trypsin digested Xyl T1 and Xyl T2 showed two different fingerprinting spectra, indicating that they are distinct enzymes. Both enzymes were specific for xylan as substrate. Xyl T1 was inhibited in greater or lesser degree by phenolic compounds, while Xyl T2 was very resistant to the inhibitory effect of all phenolic compounds tested. The apparent km values of Xyl T2, using birchwood xylan as substrate, decreased in the presence of six phenolic compounds. Both enzymes were inhibited by N-bromosuccinimide and Hg(2+) and activated by Mn(2+). Incubation of Xyl T1 and Xyl T2 with L-cysteine increased their half-lives up to 14 and 24 h at 50 °C, respectively. Atomic force microscopy showed a bimodal size distribution of globular particles for both enzymes, indicating that Xyl T1 is larger than Xyl T2.

A new bacterial strain (ISO II) was isolated from manure cow and identified as phylogenetically close to the thermophilic cellulolytic bacterium Clostridium thermocellum. The new strain produced extracellular xylanase, pectinase, mannanase and cellulase activities when grown in liquid culture medium containing banana stem as carbon source. The enzyme production profile after growth on banana stem showed that xylanase and cellulase activities were detected in different incubation periods. An enzyme complex containing xylanase, cellulase and mannanase activities was isolated from culture supernatant samples of strain ISO II. The complex was partially purified by ultrafiltration and gel filtration chromatography on Sephacryl S-300. Zymogram analysis after SDS-PAGE presented at least 05 subunits with xylanase activity. The enzyme showed single protein and xylanase activity bands after electrophoresis under non-denaturing conditions. The hydrolysis of xylan was optimal at temperature range of 55-75ºC and pH 6.0. Xylanase activity was quite stable at 65ºC, retaining 80% of its original activity after 12 h incubation. The apparent Km values, using insoluble and soluble arabinoxylans as substrates, were 1.54 and 11.53 mg/mL, respectively. Xylanase was activated by dithiothreitol, L-tryptophan and L-cysteine and strongly inhibited by N-bromosuccinimide and CoCl2. The characterization of mannanase showed Km and temperature optimum of 0.846 mg/mL and 65ºC, respectively and pH 8.0. By contrast to xylanase, it was less stable at 65ºC with half-life of 2.5 h and inhibited by dithiothreitol and Ca 2+ .