Background: It is widely recognised that fast, effective hydrolysis of pretreated lignocellulosic substrates requires the synergistic action of multiple types of hydrolytic and some non-hydrolytic proteins. However, due to the complexity of the enzyme mixture, the enzymes interaction with and interference from the substrate and a lack of specific methods to follow the distribution of individual enzymes during hydrolysis, most of enzyme-substrate interaction studies have used purified enzymes and pure cellulose model substrates. As the enzymes present in a typical "cellulase mixture" need to work cooperatively to achieve effective hydrolysis, the action of one enzyme is likely to influence the behaviour of others. The action of the enzymes will be further influenced by the nature of the lignocellulosic substrate. Therefore, it would be beneficial if a method could be developed that allowed us to follow some of the individual enzymes present in a cellulase mixture during hydrolysis of more commercially realistic biomass substrates.
Results: A high throughput immunoassay that could quantitatively and specifically follow individual cellulase enzymes during hydrolysis was developed. Using monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies (MAb and PAb, respectively), a double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed to specifically quantify cellulase enzymes from Trichoderma reesei: cellobiohydrolase I (Cel7A), cellobiohydrolase II (Cel6A), and endoglucanase I (Cel7B). The interference from substrate materials present in lignocellulosic supernatants could be minimized by dilution.
Conclusion: A double-antibody sandwich ELISA was able to detect and quantify individual enzymes when present in cellulase mixtures. The assay was sensitive over a range of relatively low enzyme concentration (0 - 1 μg/ml), provided the enzymes were first pH adjusted and heat treated to increase their antigenicity. The immunoassay was employed to quantitatively monitor the adsorption of cellulase monocomponents, Cel7A, Cel6A, and Cel7B, that were present in both Celluclast and Accellerase 1000, during the hydrolysis of steam-pretreated corn stover (SPCS). All three enzymes exhibited different individual adsorption profiles. The specific and quantitative adsorption profiles observed with the ELISA method were in agreement with earlier work where more labour intensive enzyme assay techniques were used.