Advance in chitosan hydrolysis by non-specific cellulases

Besides the specific chitinase, chitosanase and lysozyme, chitosan also could be hydrolyzed by some non-specific enzymes such as cellulase, protease, lipase and pepsin, especially cellulase, which show high activity on chitosan. Almost all the cellulases produced by different kinds of microorganisms could degrade chitosan to chitooligomers. The existence of bifunctional enzymes with cellulase and chitosanase activity is one of the reasons for cellulase on chitosan hydrolysis. The bifunctional cellulase-chitosanases mainly belong to glycoside hydrolase family 8 (GH-8), few belong to GH-5 and GH-7, according to the homogeneity analysis of amino acids sequences. Their three dimensional structures however have not been clearly determined. This paper may serve as a guide for a further study on the relationship between structure and function of chitosanolytic cellulases. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.