Deidre L. Willies, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, 8000 Cummings Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, Bin Yang, CE-CERT, University of California, 1084 Columbia Ave., Riverside, CA 92507, and Charles E. Wyman, Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering, University of California at Riverside, College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology, 1084 Columbia Avenue, Riverside, CA 92507.
Addition of non catalytic proteins (e.g., BSA) and certain surfactants has been shown to enhance cellulose hydrolysis by enzymes or reduce the amount of enzyme required to realize a particular conversion. One plausible explanation is that the additives can reduce the nonproductive adsorption of enzyme on lignin. However, the interactions among substrate features, enzymes, and proteins are not clear, and experiments were conducted to better understand the mechanism by which these additives influence hydrolysis. Adsorption and desorption profiles were measured to better clarify the interaction of BSA, cellulase, and beta-glucosidase with cellulose, pretreated corn stover, and lignin prepared from corn stover. Adsorption of cellulase and beta-glucosidase on BSA-treated corn stover and lignin was also observed. This data indicated that both corn stover and lignin adsorb large amounts of all these proteins although in different relative amounts while cellulose only adsorbs cellulase significantly. BSA treatment was also shown to reduce adsorption of enzyme by corn stover and lignin.