Characterization of xylanase from Streptomyces sp. FA1 and its application for bamboo hydrolysis

Native cellulose can be disintegrated into substructures with nano-size dimension through electronspinning. Typically, the most common source material available for cellulose nano-fiber production is wood. More attempts are employed to find new suitable resources to produce nano-cellulose at present. Bamboo boasts the abundant resource in China and possesses fast-growing, anti-bacterial, anti-UV, aroma absorbance properties as well as superior physical and mechanical characters. Cellulose is the main constituent in bamboo, which shows great potential to be the ideal source for producing cellulose nano-fiber. Traditional method for bamboo cellulose extraction needs the use of high concentrated alkaline. Such process causes severe environment problems. Therefore, study on alternative green technologies is inevitable. In this work, self-produced xylanase was applied to hydrolyze bamboo noncellulosic substances. Results indicated that such xylanase from Streptomyces sp. FA1 isolated from bamboo retting system showed broad pH range for xylan hydrolysis, which presented activity of 180 U/mL and 270 U/mL under preferred pH5.5 and pH7, respectively. Three pretreatment methods (including high temperature, ultrasonic generator and supersonic cleaner) were employed to enhance the bamboo processing, among which, xylanase hydrolysis on high temperature pretreated (120°C, 60 min) bamboo showed the most obvious effect. Thermogravimetric test represented that the weight loss of xylanase hydrolysis on high-temperature pretreated sample was higher than that of original sample, which might be attributed to the decomposition of hemi-cellulose and part of cellulose. This study establishes a base for future studies to develop enzymatic hydrolysis of bamboo noncellulosic materials, making them suitable for cellulose nano-fiber producing.