Monday, May 5, 2008
7-09

Importance of morphology of Trichoderma reesei for production of cellulases

Linda Lehmann1, Lisbeth Olsson1, Stuart Michael Stocks2, Henrik Steen Jørgensen2, and Timothy Hobley1. (1) Center for Microbial Biotechnology, Technical University of Denmark, Building 223, Søltoft Plads, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark, (2) Novozymes, DK-2880 Bagsvaerd, Denmark

A major bottleneck in developing an economically feasible process for enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose is the high cost of the enzyme production. Trichoderma reesei has long been considered to be the most efficient producer of cellulases and it is currently used for production of commercial cellulolytic enzymes (e.g. Celluclast). However, further improvements in the enzyme production process are necessary if the cost of the enzymes is to be lowered enough to make second generation bioethanol production economically feasible. T. reesei has been well characterised on a molecular level and the genome has been sequenced, but little has been done to transfer this knowledge to process relevant conditions. Therefore, a physiological characterisation of T. reesei focusing on the enzyme profile and levels produced in relation to conditions with relevance to those found during full scale production is needed. Enzyme productivity may be strongly connected to fungal morphology in T. reesei and investigating this relationship could be a major step towards designing improved fermentation processes for cellulase production. In this presentation the effect of pH and agitation on morphology and enzyme production of T. reesei Rut-C30 in batch fermentations is described. Enzyme activity has been investigated by measuring the total cellulolytic activity as well as investigating the detailed composition of the enzyme mixture.

See more of Poster Session Two
See more of General Submissions

See more of The 30th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals (May 4 -- 7, 2008)