Abstract
For better exploitation of the red seaweed Grateloupia, enzymatic digestion of the thallus may be a way to increase access to metabolites of industrial interest. With this aim, we have tried to find a method to quantify the efficiency of enzymatic digestion. Vegetative algal material was treated with polysaccharidases (Onozuka R-10 cellulase, agarase, and Ultraflo L mixture). The proportion of degraded surface area was determined by microscopic measurement of the residue surface using imaging software and compared with the analysis of carbohydrates and R-phycoerythrin released in the incubation solution. Both the reducing carbohydrate concentration and percentage of degraded surface area appeared the most reliable methods to study enzymatic efficiency. The amount of solubilized total carbohydrates, and particularly that of R-phycoerythrin, showed non-specific variations, so no conclusions could be drawn. The application of this procedure to the screening of the efficient digestion of Grateloupia material demonstrated that cell walls were only partially digested by polysaccharidase enzymes alone. The Ultraflo L mixture and Onozuka R-10 cellulase produced a greater degradation of Grateloupia tissues and a higher release of reducing carbohydrates, whereas agarase did not display any specific action. Thus, the proposed procedure based on the quantification of residue surface area seems to be an accurate method to analyze enzymatic digestion. Other tests using different concentrations and combinations of enzymes are now required.
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Denis, C., Le Jeune, H., Gaudin, P. et al. An evaluation of methods for quantifying the enzymatic degradation of red seaweed Grateloupia turuturu . J Appl Phycol 21, 153–159 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-008-9344-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-008-9344-2