Question

please help !!

1. if you were a scientist who is responsible for determining the concentration of enzyme to use in the hydrolysis process of producing sugar from cellulose, what advantage would there be to using a high concentration of enzyme? What disadvantage would there be to using a high concentration of enzyme? HINT - Enzymes are costly.

2. Scientists are constantly looking for sources of enzymes that can be used in industrial processes. If you were going to pick a source of cellobiase to be used for ethanol production for biofuels, what type of organism might you look for as a source of this enzyme? Hint: The production of glucose to be converted to ethanol in biofuel production requires the reactions to occur at high temperatures and low pH.

Answer 1

1. Cellulose is found in rich amount in plant cell material and is a polymer of D-glucose unit joined together byβ-1,4-glycosyl bonds. The cellulose can be converted into simple sugar by complete hydrolysis of the bond. endo-β-glucanase, exo-β-glucanase and and β-glucosidase enzymes are required to complete breakdown of the cellulose molecule. High concentration of enzyme will give rise to the product at higher rate, but as the conversion of cellulose to sugar is a complex process it will be difficult to maintain the high and optimal concentration of each enzyme and also it the marketed enzymes are costly. So it will be better to use low concentration of enzymes.

2. The conversion of cellobiase to bioethenol is a complex process and it required the breakdown of cellulose and hemicellulose of the cellobiase. It can be done by using enzymes or acid treatment at high temperature.Microorganisms capable of degrading these cellobiase are very much of interest to produce ethanol. The main criteria for these microorganism is that they should be able to grow at higher temperature so when high temperature is applied , they could survive and produce the enzymes required for the conversion of cellulose to ethanol.