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      Understanding the structure and function of bacterial expansins: a prerequisite towards practical applications for the bioenergy and agricultural industries

      review-article
      1 ,
      Microbial Biotechnology
      John Wiley and Sons Inc.

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          Summary

          Since the publication of a landmark article on the structure of EXLX1 from Bacillus subtilis in 2011, our knowledge of bacterial expansins has steadily increased and our view and understanding of these enigmatic proteins has advanced with relation to their structure, phylogenetic relationships and substrate interaction, although the molecular basis for their mechanism of action remains to be determined. Lignocellulosic material represents a source of fermentable sugars for the production of biofuels, and cell‐wall degrading activities are essential to efficiently release such sugars from their polymeric structures. Because expansins from fungi and bacteria seem to be required to properly colonize or cause disease to plant tissues, and because they share some characteristics with their plant counterparts for loosening the cell wall they have been seen as a promising tool to overcome the recalcitrance of these materials. However, microbial expansins activity is at best, very low compared with plant expansins activity. This revision analyses recent work on bacterial expansins structure, function and biological role, emphasizing our need to focus on their mechanism of action as a means to design better strategies for their use, in both in the energy and agricultural industries.

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          Most cited references36

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          Toward an aggregated understanding of enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose: noncomplexed cellulase systems.

          Information pertaining to enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose by noncomplexed cellulase enzyme systems is reviewed with a particular emphasis on development of aggregated understanding incorporating substrate features in addition to concentration and multiple cellulase components. Topics considered include properties of cellulose, adsorption, cellulose hydrolysis, and quantitative models. A classification scheme is proposed for quantitative models for enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose based on the number of solubilizing activities and substrate state variables included. We suggest that it is timely to revisit and reinvigorate functional modeling of cellulose hydrolysis, and that this would be highly beneficial if not necessary in order to bring to bear the large volume of information available on cellulase components on the primary applications that motivate interest in the subject. 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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            Deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals.

            Plants represent a vast, renewable resource and are well suited to provide sustainably for humankind's transportation fuel needs. To produce infrastructure-compatible fuels from biomass, two challenges remain: overcoming plant cell wall recalcitrance to extract sugar and phenolic intermediates, and reduction of oxygenated intermediates to fuel molecules. To compete with fossil-based fuels, two primary routes to deconstruct cell walls are under development, namely biochemical and thermochemical conversion. Here, we focus on overcoming recalcitrance with biochemical conversion, which uses low-severity thermochemical pretreatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to produce soluble sugars. Many challenges remain, including understanding how pretreatments affect the physicochemical nature of heterogeneous cell walls; determination of how enzymes deconstruct the cell wall effectively with the aim of designing superior catalysts; and resolution of issues associated with the co-optimization of pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation. Here, we highlight some of the scientific challenges and open questions with a particular focus on problems across multiple length scales.
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              Cell-wall carbohydrates and their modification as a resource for biofuels.

              Plant cell walls represent the most abundant renewable resource on this planet. Despite their great abundance, only 2% of this resource is currently used by humans. Hence, research into the feasibility of using plant cell walls in the production of cost-effective biofuels is desirable. The main bottleneck for using wall materials is the recalcitrance of walls to efficient degradation into fermentable sugars. Manipulation of the wall polysaccharide biosynthetic machinery or addition of wall structure-altering agents should make it possible to tailor wall composition and architecture to enhance sugar yields upon wall digestion for biofuel fermentation. Study of the biosynthetic machinery and its regulation is still in its infancy and represents a major scientific and technical research challenge. Of course, any change in wall structure to accommodate cost-efficient biofuel production may have detrimental effects on plant growth and development due to the diverse roles of walls in the life of a plant. However, the diversity and abundance of wall structures present in the plant kingdom gives hope that this challenge can be met.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                cma@ibt.unam.mx
                Journal
                Microb Biotechnol
                Microb Biotechnol
                10.1111/(ISSN)1751-7915
                MBT2
                Microbial Biotechnology
                John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )
                1751-7915
                01 July 2016
                November 2016
                : 9
                : 6 ( doiID: 10.1111/mbt2.2016.9.issue-6 )
                : 727-736
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Departamento de Ingeniería Celular y Biocatálisis Instituto de BiotecnologíaUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de México Av. Universidad 2001, Chamilpa Cuernavaca 62210 MorelosMéxico
                Author notes
                [*] [* ]For correspondence. E‐mail cma@ 123456ibt.unam.mx ; Tel. (+52)777‐3291655; Fax (+52)777‐3172388.
                Article
                MBT212377
                10.1111/1751-7915.12377
                5072189
                27365165
                38277dcb-ab47-4181-b6fa-4bb8f1882c1c
                © 2016 The Author. Microbial Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 08 March 2016
                : 06 June 2016
                : 09 June 2016
                Page count
                Figures: 3, Tables: 0, Pages: 10, Words: 7272
                Funding
                Funded by: CONACYT
                Award ID: SEP‐Ciencia Básica 166050
                Categories
                Minireview
                Minireviews
                Custom metadata
                2.0
                mbt212377
                November 2016
                Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_NLMPMC version:4.9.5 mode:remove_FC converted:20.10.2016

                Biotechnology
                Biotechnology

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