Date of Award
2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program
Biology
Supervisor
Dr. Rima Menassa
Second Advisor
Dr. Susanne Kohalmi
Abstract
Lack of effective biomass pretreatments has been one of the main limiting factors for cellulosic ethanol production. The addition of plant-made hemicellulases to the pretreatment procedure is an alternative method of obtaining fermentable sugars. Four putative or characterized xylanases out of 73 hydrolases from A. niger were found by bioinformatics analysis. Proteins of interest were targeted to the ER, and transiently expressed in N. benthamiana plants accumulating up to 38% of TSP. A simple surfactant- based aqueous two-phase system was used to purify xylanase-HFBI fusions with a recovery up to 83%. An endoxylanase and a P-xylosidase were characterized, and their combined action enhanced xylose production. This study presents a very promising expression and purification system for fungal hemicellulases to further improve cellulosic ethanol production.
Recommended Citation
Yan, Ruoyu, "EXPRESSION OF ACTIVE FUNGAL XYLANASES IN N. BENTHAMIANA FOR HEMICELLULOSE DEGRADATION" (2011). Digitized Theses. 3359.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/3359