Facile biosynthesis of synthetic crystalline cellulose nanoribbon from maltodextrin through a minimized two-enzyme phosphorylase cascade and its application in emulsion

Abstract

Nanocellulose has many promising applications such as a green ingredient for Pickering emulsion. Traditional strategies to produce nanocellulose, which are acid or enzymatic hydrolysis and mechanical methods on natural complicated cellulose, are hard to control and can result in significant pollutants during the processes. Herein, we demonstrated a facile and sustainable method for the biocatalytic production of insoluble synthetic crystalline cellulose nanoribbon (CCNR) from cheap maltodextrin by coupling α-glucan phosphorylase (αGP) and cellodextrin phosphorylase (CDP) using cellobiose as a primer. And by optimizing the combination of different αGP and CDP, it turned out that the optimal enzyme combination is αGP from Thermotoga maritime and CDP from Clostridium thermocellum, in which CDP was attached to a family 9 cellulose-binding module. The product yield and degree of polymerization (DP) of insoluble synthetic CCNR was affected by the primer concentration at a fixed concentration of maltodextrin. After optimization of reaction conditions, the highest product yield of insoluble synthetic CCNR was 44.92 % and the highest DP of the insoluble synthetic CCNR was 24 from 50 g 1^-1 maltodextrin. This insoluble synthetic CCNR can be used as a Pickering emulsions stabilizer, showing excellent emulsifiability. This study provides a promising alternative for cost-efficient production of insoluble synthetic CCNR which was used as a green emulsion stabilizer.

Keywords: Enzymes cascade; Maltodextrin; Pickering emulsion; Synthetic CCNR.