Abstract
Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) is a lignocellulosic waste produced in palm oil industry. EFB mainly consists of cellulose, hemicellulose (mainly xylan) and lignin and has a great potential to be reused. Converting EFB to fermentable sugars and value-added chemicals is a much better choice than treating EFB as waste. A cellulase-producing strain growing on oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) was isolated and identified as Neurospora crassa S1, which is able to produce cellulases using EFB as the sole carbon source. The strain started to secret cellulases into the medium after 24 h of cultivation at 30°C and reached its maximal cellulase activity at 240 h. Mass spectroscopy (MS) analysis showed that more than 50 proteins were secreted into the medium when EFB was used as the sole carbon source. Among them, 7 proteins were identified as putative enzymes associated with cellulose degradation. The whole cell culture of Neurospora crassa S1 was used to hydrolyze acid-treated EFB, giving a total sugar yield of 83.2%, which is comparable with that (82.0%) using a well-known cellulase producer Trichoderma reesei RUT-C30 (ATCC56765). Neurospora crassa S1 is a commercially promising native cellulase producer for EFB hydrolysis especially when the sugars obtained are to be fermented to products that require use of non-genetically engineered strains.
Highlights
Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) is a lignocellulosic waste produced in palm oil industry
Strain isolation Many cellulase-producing strains have been isolated from the places rich in cellulose, which may be due to the fact that cellulase production is an inducible process
Fungal growth on EFB was observed when EFB was kept in humid environment, indicating that the fungi may use EFB as the sole carbon source for their growth
Summary
Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) is a lignocellulosic waste produced in palm oil industry. EFB mainly consists of cellulose, hemicellulose (mainly xylan) and lignin and has a great potential to be reused. Lignocellulose is one of the most abundant renewable resources produced in agriculture and forest industries [1] and is of great importance for human being in terms of its potential to be converted to fuels and chemicals [2]. Enzyme production is usually initiated when cellulosic substrates are present. This is the reason why most cellulase-producing strains were isolated from environments rich in lignocellulosic wastes. The production of cellulases by microorganisms is a complicated process; strains induced by different substrates might produce different cellulases which are more suitable for acting on the specific substrates [7]. There are many cellulase-producing strains that are commercially available, it is still necessary to isolate new strains for more efficient degradation of specific lignocellulosic materials
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