Development of multi-enzymatic complexes for the improvement of biofuel production

NATALIA GOROJOVSKY; MATÍAS IGLESIAS PANDO; MARTÍN MIGUEL DODES TRAIAN; VANESA ZYLBERMAN; FERNANDO GOLDBAUM; PATRICIO CRAIG

San Miguel de Tucumán

Congreso; XLV Reunión Sociedad Argentina de Biofísica; 2016

Sociedad Argentina de Biofísica

Lignocellulose is the most abundant renewable resource on the planetand is an excellent substrate for the production of biofuels. Its en-zymatic degradation generates sugars that upon fermentation producebioethanol. The ligno-cellulolytic enzymes currently used in this pro-cess are expensive and have low efficiency. For an economically viableproduction of biofuels it is essential to develop new methods to increasethe activity and stability of these enzymes. Cellulosomes are multien-zymatic complexes that colocalize different cellulolytic enzymes andcellulose binding domains, increasing their degradation activity throughenzymatic proximity and substrate targeting effects. However, the in-dustrial production of natural cellulosomes has serious limitations be-cause of the properties of their scaffolding protein. Our goal is to de-velop artificial cellulosomes using the structure of an oligomeric pro-tein that is highly stable and highly expressed in bacteria, as a scaffoldfor the colocalization of cellulases, hemicellulases, beta-glucosidasesand cellulose binding domains. For the assembly of these multienzy-matic particles we use a non-covalent coupling strategy trough highaffinity heterodimeric modules (coiled peptides or cohesin/dockerinamodules) complementary fused to the structure of the protein targetsand the oligomeric scaffold. It is expected that these complexes willhelp to increase the enzymatic lignocellulose degradation, reducing thecost of bioethanol production and favoring fossil fuels substitution.