Production, purification and properties of fungal chitinases--a review.

After cellulose, chitin is the second most abundant organic and renewable polysaccharide in nature. This polymer is degraded by enzymes called chitinases which are a part of the glycoside hydrolase family. Chitinases have many important biophysiological functions and immense potential applications especially in control of phytopathogens, production of chito- oligosaccharides with numerous uses and in treatment and degradation of chitinous biowaste. At present many microbial sources are being explored and tapped for chitinase production which includes potential fungal cultures. With advancement in molecular biology and gene cloning techniques, research on fungal chitinases have made fast progress. The present review focuses on recent advances in fungal chitinases, containing a short introduction to types of chitinases, their fermentative production, purification and characterization and molecular cloning and expression.

Dilute acid pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of sorghum biomass for sugar recovery--a statistical approach.

Sorghum is one of the commercially feasible lignocellulosic biomass and has a great potential of being sustainable feedstock for renewable energy. As with any lignocellulosic biomass, sorghum also requires pretreatment which increases its susceptibility to hydrolysis by enzymes for generating sugars which can be further fermented to alcohol. In the present study, sorghum biomass was evaluated for deriving maximum fermentable sugars by optimizing various pretreatment parameters using statistical optimization methods. Pretreatment studies were done with H2SO4, followed by enzymatic saccharification. The efficiency of the process was evaluated on the basis of production of the total reducing sugars released during the process. Compositional analysis was done for native as well as pretreated biomass and compared. The biomass pretreated with the optimized conditions could yield 0.408 g of reducing sugars /g of pretreated biomass upon enzymatic hydrolysis. The cellulose content in the solid portion obtained after pretreatment using optimised conditions was found to be increased by 43.37% with lesser production of inhibitors in acid pretreated liquor.