Lignocellulose biodegradation: An advance technology

for sustainable environment

Archit Sharma, Rajesh Kumar, Meenu Rathi, Divya Bhatia and Deepak Kumar Malik*

Department of Biotechnology, U.I.E.T, Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra G. M. N College Ambala Cantt,

Haryana, India

ABSTRACT

The ever increasing energy load has attracted signi cant attention on the development and growth of renewable

resources. Many workers have reported conversion of waste materials to useful compost. Lignocellulose consists of the

three constituents indicated as cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Lignocellulosic biomass can be reused in the produc-

tion of chemicals and fuels. Cellulose and hemicellulose can be degraded into sugars, which are preliminary source for

fermentation, biocatalytic and chemocatalytic processes to value-added products. A large number of microorganisms

including bacteria and fungi are capable of producing cellulases and hemicellulases but only a limited number of these

microorganisms are capable of producing lignin degrading enzymes. There are numerous methods available for the

isolation of lignocellulose degrading microbial consortium. Lignocellulose compounds are most abundant agricultural

residues present in the world. In this short review, updated account is presented on various aspects of lignocellulose

compounds which can be utilized by fungi, actinomycetes and bacteria. The lignocellulytic utilizing microbial consor-

tium can be used for the conversion of biomass feedstock to useful bio-based products. The use of farming crop wastes

involves a separation of the polymeric compounds - cellulose and hemicelluloses. This approach comes under sustain-

able “green” biotechnology.

KEY WORDS: LIGNOCELLULOSE, RICE STRAW, FERMENTATION, CELLULASES AND HEMICELLULASES

634

Environmental

Communication

Biosci. Biotech. Res. Comm. 11(4): 634-637 (2018)

ARTICLE INFORMATION:

Corresponding Authors: deepmolbio@rediffmail.com

Received 10

Sep, 2018

Accepted after revision 21

Dec, 2018

BBRC Print ISSN: 0974-6455

Online ISSN: 2321-4007 CODEN: USA BBRCBA

Thomson Reuters ISI ESC / Clarivate Analytics USA

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Journal Mono of CR

NAAS Journal Score 2018: 4.31 SJIF 2017: 4.196

Online Contents Available at:

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DOI: 10.21786/bbrc/11.4/14

Archit Sharma et al.

BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS LIGNOCELLULOSE BIODEGRADATION: AN ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT 635

INTRODUCTION

Lignocellulosic biomass consists mainly of cellulose

(35–50%), hemicellulose (25–30%) and lignin (25–30%).

The plant biomass is a carbon source for bio-re nery

industry, considered as sustainable and environmental

friendly substitute to the current petroleum platform

(Kamm et al., 2004). The composition of lignocelluloses

not only depends upon the species but also on the dif-

ferent parts of the plant, their age and growth conditions

(Jorgensen, 2003). The large quantity of lignocellulosic

materials create them potentially inexpensive and easily

available natural resources for the production of high

value compounds and biofuels. The degradation of cel-

lulose, hemicelluloses and lignin are extremely slow.

The various microorganisms are capable of growing on

lignocellulosic materials and produce a wide range of

enzymes that could be of scienti c or industrial impor-

tance, (Varma et al. 2017 Tolalpa et al. 2018) .

Cellulose

It is homopolysaccharide constituent of the  ber wall,

consists of D-glucose linked together by ß-1, 4-gly-

cosidic bonds. Cellulose form intra- or intermolecular

hydrogen bonds resulting in the formation of cellulose

micro brils. Due to hydrogen bond it is not soluble in

most solvents and resistance against microbial degrada-

tion (Jorgensen, 2003). It is hydrolyzed by cellulase, 1,

4-ß-cellobiosidase and ß-glucosidase (Schmidt, 2006).

Cellulases hydrolyses cellulose consists of cellobiohy-

drolases, endoglucanases and ß-glucosidase. The cello-

biohydrolase and endoglucanase function together for

hydrolyzing 1, 4-ß-D-glycosidic linkages in cellulose,

cello-oligomers and other ß-D-glucans and to form cel-

lobiose from the non-reducing ends, which are degraded

by ß-glucosidase to glucose units.

Hemicellulose

It consists of monomeric residues, like D-glucuronic acid,

D-mannose, D-arabinose, D-glucose and D-xylose. They

have lesser degree of polymerization in comparison to

cellulose, with side chains that can be acetylated. They are

classi ed according to the monomeric sugar in the back-

bone of the polymer, e.g. mannan (ß-1, 4-linked mannose)

or xylan (ß-1, 4-linked xylose) hemicelluloses. The main

chains of glucose and mannose residues are generally

associated with ß-(1, 4) bond. The side chain is attached

to main chain via a-(1, 6) bonds in galactoglucomannan.

Xylan can be degraded by endo-1, 4-ß-xylanase and 1,

4-ß-xylosidase to xylose (Jorgensen, 2003). Due to more

heterogenous nature of hemicellulose, a combination of

enzymes is necessary for its degradation, such as endoxy-

lanases, ß-xylosidases, endomannanases, ß-mannosi-

dases, a-L-arabinofuranosidases and a-galactosidases.

Lignin

It is very much hydrophobic and forms an amorphous

complex with hemicelluloses enclosing cellulose and

make unavailable to microbial utilization of available

carbohydrates within the wood cell wall. It is jointing

component to attach cells and harden the cell wall of

xylem, which is accountable for the smooth move-

ment of water from roots to leaves. Its aromatic rings

are responsible to create it trickier to degrade (Schmidt,

2006). Ester linkages take place among the free carboxy

group in hemicellulose and the benzyl groups in lignin,

the lignicarbohydrate complex (LCC), embeds the cel-

lulose, which is resposibe for giving protection against

microbial and chemical degradation (Jeffries, 1994).

The lignin is not to be utilized by most of the micro-

organisms due to its phenylpropane units in the struc-

ture (Schmidt, 2006). Now days there are huge atten-

tion in isolating organisms able to degrade lignin, in the

cleaving of the chemical bonds that are present between

lignin and hemicelluloses. The continuous utilization of

these compounds is extremely slow. The microorgan-

isms isolated from from soil and rumens are capable to

degrade in to sugars, which can be utilized as energy

and carbon source by a variety of microorganisms for

the production of different products.

Role of microbial consortium in utilization of

lignocellulose biomass

Kumar et al. (2001) isolated Branhamella catarrhal, Bro-

chothrix sp., Micrococcus luteus and Bacillus  rmus

from cane sugar factory ef uent contaminated soil. All

microbes can use cinnamic acid as sole carbon source

with signi cant inhibition after addition of glucose. The

B. catarrhalis and Brochothrix sp. were able of metabo-

lizing ferulic acid but not in the presence of glucose.

The lignocellulolytic enzyme pro les of  ve strains of

Agaricus and four strains of Pleurotus were determined

by Rana and Rana in 2004. The crude enzyme from the

colonized substrate was used to analysis the enzymatic

activities. All strains of Agaricus showed higher level of

cellulases activities in comparison of Pleurotus strains.

The Pleurotus sp. exhibits high ligninases activity. The

difference in lignocellulolytic enzyme summary was

present both at interspecies and intraspecies point. The

lignocellulose utilization in solid state fermentation in

sugarcane bagasse and rice straw by Aspergillus tamari

was isolated by Umasaravanan et al. (2010). The micro-

organisms isolated from marine environment which can

utilize the lignocellulosic biomass were showed by Sethi

et al. (2013).

The organisms showing maximum degradation were

recognized as Bacillus pumilus and Mesorhizzobium sp.,

as well two fungal sp. recognized as Aspergillus niger

Archit Sharma et al.

636 LIGNOCELLULOSE BIODEGRADATION: AN ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY FOR SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

and Trichodermaviride. The organisms showed different

levels of utilization at different time point in a diversity

of substrates. The thermophilic microbial consortium was

isolated by Malik et al. (2015) from sugarcane industry

mature compost. The consortium was able to degrade

rice straw. The lignin can be productively degraded by

white-rot fungi, producing a number of oxidoreductases,

enzymes able to attack phenolic structures. Varma et al.

(2017) studied about those microbes which were actively

involved in lignocelluloses degradation during drum

composting of mixed organic waste i.e. saw dust, cat-

tle manure, dry leaves and vegetable waste in a 550 L

rotary drum composter.

An anaerobic thermophilic bacterial strains for eth-

anol production from D-xylose was reported by Som-

mer et al. (2004). Lu et al. (2004) reported Clostridium

phytofermentans, responsible for the maximum number

of enzymes for the utilization of lignocellulosic biomass

between sequenced Clostridial genomes. The Clostridium

thermocellum generate a collection of cellulolytic and

hemicellulolytic enzymes in a multienzyme complex

system are known as cellulosome. The cellulosome was

 rstly reported in anaerobic bacteria such as Clostridium

thermocellum in 1983 and then in anaerobic fungi in

1992 (Wilson et al., 1992). Abd-Elsalam et al. (2009) iso-

lated bacterial strains KafAH19 degrade synthetic lignin

and use as a carbon source. The strain was biochemically

characterized as gram-positive rod. By using 16S rDNA

sequencing the culture was recognized as Bacillus sp..

The lignocellulose utilizing microbes by using a selec-

tive media using lignin, xylan and cellulose as selective

substrates was isolated by Wahyudi et al. (2010). The

isolates were recognized as Enterococcus casseli avus/

gallinarum sp. Wongwilaiwalin et al. (2010) worked on

thermophilic lignocellulose utilizing microbial con-

sortium and multi-species lignocellulolytic enzymatic

involvement. Gontikaki et al. (2015) observed that the

pro cient degradation of terr OC in the marine environ-

ment could be fuelled by labile marine based objects

by treating coastal sediments with 13C-lignocellulose,

as a proxy for terrOC, in the presence and absence of

unlabelled diatom detritus that acted as the important

inducer. The amount of priming was viewed by the dif-

ferentiation in lignocellulose mineralisation between

diatom-amended treatments and controls in aerobic

sediment slurries.

Ransom-Jones et al. (2017) have reported that land ll

sites symbolize a repository of uncultivated lignocellu-

lose-degrading Microbes such as Firmicutes, Bacteroi-

detes, Spirochaetes, and Fibrobacteres, which are rich

source for biomass degradation. According to Cortes-

Tolalpa et al. (2017), Lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) is a

striking source of carbon for the production of sugars

and other useful chemicals. Due to its innate density

and heterogeneity, pro cient biodegradation requires

the actions of diverse and various types of hydrolytic

enzymes. So, they observed that the wheat straw degra-

dation potential of synthetic microbial consortia com-

posed of bacteria and fungi.

Alessi et al. (2018) explored the enzymatic degrada-

tion of lignin which is complicated due to its structural

complexity, lack of hydrolysable linkages and insoluble

nature and also discuss the developments in the degra-

dation of lignin by microorganisms and the catabolic

pathways for degradation of lignin. Mohn et al. (2018)

illustrate that by applying stable isotope probing (SIP)

coupled with amplicon and shotgun metagenomics, it is

possible to recognize and describe the functional attrib-

utes of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin - degrad-

ing bacteria and fungi. The halotolerant lignocellulose

degrading microbial consortia was isolated by Cortes-

Tolalpa et al. (2018) by feeding a salt marsh soil micro-

biome on an intractable carbon and energy source, i.e.,

wheat straw.

Conclusion and future prospects

Lignocellulose compounds are most abundant agricul-

tural residues present in the world. There are various

reports that lignocellulose compounds can be utilized

by fungi, action mycetes and bacteria. The lingo cel-

lulytic utilizing microbial consortium can be used for

the conversion of biomass feedstock to useful bio-based

products. The use of farming crop wastes involves a

separation of the polymeric compounds - cellulose and

hemicelluloses. This approach comes under sustainable

“green” biotechnology.

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