Search

Endo-fucoidanases, including EC 3.2.1.211 endo-α-1,3-L-fucanase and EC 3.2.1.212 endo-α-1,4-L-fucanase activities, catalyze depolymerization of fucoidans - a group of bioactive, sulfated fucosyl-polysaccharides found primarily in brown macroalgae (brown seaweeds). Quantitative assessment of endo-fucoidanase activity is critical for characterizing endo-fucoidanase kinetics and for comparing the action of different endo-fucoidanases on different types of fucoidans. However, the current state-of-the-art endo-fucoidanase assay consists of a qualitative assessment based on Carbohydrate-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis. Here, we report a new quantitative endo-fucoidanase assay based on real time spectral evolution profiling of changes in substrate and product during endo-fucoidanase action using Fourier Transform InfraRed spectroscopy (FTIR) combined with Parallel Factor Analysis (PARAFAC). The FTIR-PARAFAC assay was validated by monitoring the reaction progress of three different microbial endo-fucoidanase enzymes, FcnAΔ229, FFA2 and Fhf1Δ470, on two different fucoidan substrates. The substrates were purified from the brown macroalgae Fucus evanescens and Fucus vesiculosus, respectively. The evolution profiling showed that the strongest spectral change of the fucoidans during enzymatic depolymerization occurred in the spectral range 1220-1260 cm -1 , but the profiles differed depending on the substrate and the enzyme used. Spectral changes within 1220-1260 cm -1 are in agreement with the enzymatic depolymerization inducing signature changes in the mid-infrared absorption of sulfated fucosyls as sulfate ester bonds and C-O stretching vibrations absorb in this spectral region. Based on the data obtained, we also introduce an activity unit for endo-fucoidanases: One endo-fucoidanase Unit, U f , is the amount of enzyme able to catalyze a change in the FTIR-PARAFAC score by 0.01 during 498 s of reaction (8.3 min) on 20 g/L pure fucoidan from F. evanescens at 42 °C, pH 7.4, 100 mM NaCl and 10 mM CaCl 2 . This new quantitative endo-fucoidanase assay can pave the way for better kinetic characterizations as well as novel explorations of endo-fucoidanases., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Laccases (EC 1.10.3.2) are enzymes known for their ability to catalyze the oxidation of phenolic compounds using molecular oxygen as the final electron acceptor. Laccase activity is commonly determined by monitoring spectrophotometric changes (absorbance) of the product or substrate during the enzymatic reaction. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) is a fast and versatile technique where spectral evolution profiling, i.e. assessment of the spectral changes of both substrate and products during enzymatic conversion in real time, can be used to assess enzymatic activity when combined with multivariate data analysis. We employed FTIR to monitor enzymatic oxidation of monolignols (sinapyl, coniferyl and p-coumaryl alcohol), sinapic acid, and sinapic aldehyde by four different laccases: three fungal laccases from Trametes versicolor, Trametes villosa and Ganoderma lucidum, respectively, and one bacterial laccase from Meiothermus ruber. By coupling the FTIR measurements with Parallel Factor Analysis (PARAFAC) we established a quantitative assay for assessing laccase activity. By combining PARAFAC modelling with Principal Component Analysis we show the usefulness of this technology as a multivariate tool able to compare and distinguish different laccase reaction patterns. We also demonstrate how the FTIR approach can be used to create a reference system for laccase activity comparison based on a relatively low number of measurements. Such a reference system has potential to function as a high-throughput method for comparing reaction pattern similarities and differences between laccases and hereby identify new and interesting enzyme candidates in large sampling pools., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Enzymes are used in many processes to release fermentable sugars for green production of biofuel, or the refinery of biomass for extraction of functional food ingredients such as pectin or prebiotic oligosaccharides. The complex biomasses may, however, require a multitude of specific enzymes which are active on specific substrates generating a multitude of products. In this paper we use the plant polymer, pectin, to present a method to quantify enzyme activity of two pectolytic enzymes by monitoring their superimposed spectral evolutions simultaneously. The data is analyzed by three chemometric multiway methods, namely PARAFAC, TUCKER3 and N-PLS, to establish simultaneous enzyme activity assays for pectin lyase and pectin methyl esterase. Correlation coefficients Rpred(2) for prediction test sets are 0.48, 0.96 and 0.96 for pectin lyase and 0.70, 0.89 and 0.89 for pectin methyl esterase, respectively. The retrieved models are compared and prediction test sets show that especially TUCKER3 performs well, even in comparison to the supervised regression method N-PLS., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The recent advances in multi-way analysis provide new solutions to traditional enzyme activity assessment. In the present study enzyme activity has been determined by monitoring spectral changes of substrates and products in real time. The method relies on measurement of distinct spectral fingerprints of the reaction mixture at specific time points during the course of the whole enzyme catalyzed reaction and employs multi-way analysis to detect the spectral changes. The methodology is demonstrated by spectral evolution profiling of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectral fingerprints using parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) for pectin lyase, glucose oxidase, and a cellulase preparation., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Efficient generation of a fermentable hydrolysate is a primary requirement in the utilization of fibrous plant biomass as feedstocks in bioethanol processes. The first biomass conversion step usually involves a hydrothermal pretreatment before enzymatic hydrolysis. The purpose of the pretreatment step is to increase the responsivity of the substrate to enzymatic attack and the type of pretreatment affects the enzymatic conversion efficiency. Destarched corn bran is a fibrous, heteroxylan-rich side-stream from the starch industry which may be used as a feedstock for bioethanol production or as a source of xylose for other purposes. In the present study we demonstrate the use of diffuse reflectance near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) as a rapid and non-destructive analytical tool for evaluation of pretreatment effects on destarched corn bran. NIR was used to achieve classification between 43 differently pretreated corn bran samples using principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchal clustering algorithms. Quantification of the enzymatically released monosaccharides by HPLC was used to design multivariate calibration models (biPLS) on the NIR spectra. The models could predict the enzymatic release of different levels of arabinose, xylose and glucose from all the differently pretreated destarched corn bran samples. The present study also demonstrates a generic, non-destructive solution to determine the enzymatic monosaccharide release from polymers in biomass side-streams, thereby potentially replacing the cumbersome HPLC analysis., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)