Thermophilic Cellulolytic Enzymes: From Discovery to Design

Abstract

Compared with current commercial lignocellulolytic enzymes from fungi, their analogues from thermophilic organisms own excellent properties on thermostability and catalytic efficiency. However, isolating and culturing the pure extreme microorganisms are big challenges. It is a huge difficulty to collect sample from inaccessible environments, subsequently culturing these microorganisms with expensive laboratory instruments and special biotechnological skills. Recent advances in microbial biotechnology, especially for pure anaerobe cultivation, single cell sequencing, low-cost genome sequencing, and bioinformatics, allow us to thoroughly understand intrinsic mechanisms within these thermophilic lignocellulose deconstruction systems. In this chapter, we focus on four short topics: (1) key cellulolytic enzymes from filamentous fungi, (2) discovery of potential lignocellulosic cellulolytic enzymes from thermophilic biomass degraders, (3) characterization and application of thermophilic cellulolytic enzymes in filamentous fungi enzyme cocktails, and (4) design for more thermostable cellulases. Variation in cellulase protein structures and acting mechanisms will also be introduced.