Talk:Cellulase

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Cellulase

It should be mentioned that mushrooms are cellulase producers and that they are mainly the only organisms with this ability.

Technically a variety of plants, fungi and bacteria produces cellulase, with the most evolved or most efficient at digesting cellulose being Clostridiums like Clostridium acetobutylicum and Clostridium cellulovoran, I’ll add some pictures of the cellulosome structure to explain their efficiency.--BerserkerBen 17:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible for someone to expand this page? Some info on ideal temparature and PH would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Riottto (talk • contribs) 12:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed a non-sequitor "Cellulase also does not dissolve certain chemicals found in certain fruits, such as bananas, grapefruits, or apples." from the list of 5 types of cellulases, it's a sixth entry, it's not a type a cellulase, and doesn't really andd much scholarly info. May even have been subtle vandalisim. 64.252.40.85 (talk) 19:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

How are these produced commericially?

What types of processes are used to make these, how are they stored, and transported?
~ender 2008-10-05 6:05:AM MST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.240.15.52 (talk)

Why do so few organisms produce them?

Given that cellulose is so ubiquitous in nature, one would assume that evolving cellulase should be a common occurrence. Is it know why that is not the case? If so, the info should be added to the article. -- 77.7.186.186 (talk) 11:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

If it were easily degraded, what benefit would it be?--Wetman (talk) 01:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe none, but the question was, "why isn't it easily degraded in the first place". -- 77.189.113.33 (talk) 14:27, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The structure of cellulose makes it exceptionally resistant to hydrolysis; it takes a suite of several enzymes to pry the chains apart and hydrolyze them. [1] --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

The question "what benefit would it be?" is a poignantly silly question! Think about it. Here we have a biopolymer that literally "grows like a weed" all over the planet and that is packed with thousands of glucose monomers. You might as well ask, "Of what use are simple sugars to humans for food and fuel purposes?" With plant cellulose, we're talking about an energy mechanism that captures and stores solar energy chemically in nontoxic ways with resultant supplies that are really easy to transport and store. But you mostly don't even need to transport anyway, because grasses or trees can grow almost anywhere temperate. Think about it. This is why truly commercially practical cellulosic alcohols (e.g., cellulosic ethanol) are the holy grail of the biofuel industry and could render the oil and gas drilling industry, and even the nuclear power industry, irrelevant. You could have all the many benefits of carbonaceous liquid fuels and petrochemicals (which our standard of living depends on) but in a carbon cycle–balanced and renewable resource way (recycling surface and atmosphere carbon instead of pumping underground carbon up into it and thus adding to it). The question "what benefit would it be?" might as well be the intentional softball in an infomercial, given how juicy the answers are. What about food shortages, especially famines? Imagine that you could easily convert any nearby grassy or woody plants to food. Hmmm. Ding ding goes the bell. Even if the food you made out of it was not very tasty, it sure beats starving. Speaking of food scarcity, one of the concerns about today's conventional biofuels, which are made from grains, is that they set up competition for grain with food purposes, potentially driving up the price of food, which may not hurt people with plush income levels but threatens the other 80% of humans. Cheap and plentiful cellulosic alcohols would render that, too, irrelevant. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:07, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

In plants?

I deleted synthesis of cellulase in plants: according to the cited reference, Phylogenetic Analysis of the Plant Endo-ß-1,4-Glucanase Gene Family. Journal of Molecular Evolution. 2004 May;58(5):506-15.</ref> it's the gene for glucanase that has a role in the synthesis of cellulose. Please vet my edit. --Wetman (talk) 01:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Mechanism/Terminology

This entry needs some work to have an updated view of how cellulase action works and what terminology is appropriate. I made a few minor edits to try and clarify. Will be back when I have time. (570ajk (talk) 21:52, 10 March 2012 (UTC))

Synonyms vs subtyes vs specific enzymes

The previous version of this article provided a long list of names in parenthesis in the lead sentence, and another partially overlapping list at the end of the head section, without telling whether they were synonyms of "cellulase", subtypes of cellulase, or specific enzymes. I could not clarify the matter so I merely merged the two lists at the end of the head section. Currently many of those names point back to this article, but some of them at least seem to be more specific terms; if so, they deserve articles of their own, even if stubs. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 21:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Assay methods

"Traditional reducing sugar assays using this substrate can not be employed for the measurement of cellulase activity" - this isn't something I'm too knowledgeable about, but I would appreciate some explanation of why this is. What stops you from assaying the product solution for simple sugar content? Or is too little glucose produced immediately for that kind of assay? 10:29, 14 March 2016 (UTC)