Isolation of a Cotton Wool Degrading Strain of Cellulomonas: Mutants With Altered Ability to Degrade Cotton Wool

Abstract

A Cellulomonas strain (CSI-I) which could readily degrade cotton wool was isolated from soil. Production of cell-bound and extracellular carboxymethylcellulase (CMCase), P-glucosidase and avicelase during growth on different substrates was determined. Methods for the isolation of mutants were assessed and mutants were isolated which were altered in their ability to degrade cotton wool when compared to CSI-L Studies on one mutant (CSl-7) which was able to degrade cotton wool more rapidly than the parent revealed large differences in the levels of cell-bound and extracellular CMCase when compared to CSI-L

Ecology of Microbial Cellulose Degradation

“…Cell-bound fj-glucosidases are present in Cellulomonas species (Choi et al, 1978;Stoppok et aI., 1982). These enzymes may be responsible for the hydrolysis of cellobiose to glucose, which then is fermented.…”

“…In addition, several unclassified Cellulomonas isolates are available and are being used in studies of cellulases. These isolates include strain IIbc, obtained in Cuba by Dr. M. Ibarra (Beguin et al, 1977), strain CS 1-1, found in soil (Choi et al, 1978), strain DK, from sludge (Ramasamy et aI., 1981), as well as strains without designations from soil (Han and Srinivasan, 1968;Stewart and Leatherwood, 1976), bagasse (Cabello et ai., 1981), and the gut of a manure worm (Chosson and Dupuy, 1983).…”

The Cellulase System of Cellulomonas fimi

“…In strains of Cellulomonas, for example, mutants have been isolated which are more efficient than the parent strains in the degradation of crystalline cellulose. These can be resistant to catabolite repression (Stewart & Leatherwood, 1976), end-product inhibition (Choudhury et al, 1980), or can produce increased levels of cellulases (Choi et al, 1978).…”

Saccharification of sugar cane bagasse by an enzyme preparation fromCellulomonas: Resistance to product inhibition

“…The isolation and characterization of CSl-1 and the mutant derivative CSl-17 have been described previously (Choi et al, 1978;Haggett et al, 1979;Choudhury et al, 1980). The substrate used in these experiments was the fraction of sugar cane bagasse with a particle size less than 0.7 mm.…”