Abstract
The structural polysaccharides contained in plant cell walls have been pointed to as a promising renewable alternative to petroleum and natural gas. Ferulic acid is a ubiquitous component of plant polysaccharides, which is found in either monomeric or dimeric forms and is covalently linked to arabinosyl residues. Ferulic acid has several commercial applications in food and pharmaceutical industries. The study herein introduces a novel feruloyl esterase from Aspergillus clavatus (AcFAE). Along with a comprehensive functional and biophysical characterization, the low-resolution structure of this enzyme was also determined by small-angle X-ray scattering. In addition, we described the production of phenolic compounds with antioxidant capacity from wheat arabinoxylan and sugarcane bagasse using AcFAE. The ability to specifically cleave ester linkages in hemicellulose is useful in several biotechnological applications, including improved accessibility to lignocellulosic enzymes for biofuel production.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by grants from FAPESP (2008/58037-9) and CNPq (475022/2011-4 and 310177/2011-1). ARLD received a postdoctoral fellowship from FAPESP (2011/02169-7), and CMPB received a fellowship from FAPESP (2009/17956-4). We gratefully acknowledge the provision of time at the CNPEM facilities LEC/LNBio and SAXS2/LNLS, located in Campinas, Brazil.
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André R. L. Damásio, Cleiton Márcio Pinto Braga, and Lívia Brenelli contributed equally to this work.
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Damásio, A.R.L., Braga, C.M.P., Brenelli, L.B. et al. Biomass-to-bio-products application of feruloyl esterase from Aspergillus clavatus . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 97, 6759–6767 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-012-4548-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-012-4548-4