Degradation of Holocellulose by an Enzyme Preparation from a Wood-destroying Fungus

Abstract

THE wood-destroying fungi form a specialized group of cellulolytic organisms which are able to utilize the cellulose and other polysaccharides present in a highly lignified cell wall. Some of these fungi degrade only the polysaccharide components of the wood cell leaving the lignin modified, but more or less intact (brown rots); others break down the polysaccharides and the lignin (white rots). Despite the obvious ability of these fungi to utilize cellulose, enzyme preparations from wood-destroy ing organisms have usually had rather weak hydrolytic activity on native cellulose¹. The cellulolytic activity in culture filtrates of Coniophora cerebella, a brown rot organism, was found to be markedly dependent on the culture conditions, which may account for some of the unsuccessful attempts to prepare such enzymes from wood-destroying fungi in the past.