An automated spectrophotometric flow-injection procedure for the determination of cellulase activity in bioreactor preparations.
A spectrophotometric procedure for the determination of cellulase activity in precipitated bioreactor preparations and culture filtrates is described. It is based on the determination of reducing sugar produced by the action of the enzyme on carboxymethylcellulose. The reducing sugar is derivatized with p-aminobenzoyl-hydrazide and permits a limit of detection of 0.1 U ml-1 cellulase in the presence of background sugar, with a sampling rate of 5 h-1. The method can readily be applied to the determination of any carbohydrase acting on soluble substrates and producing reducing sugars, e.g. amylase, dextranase, xylanase, glucanase and polygalacturonase.
School of Chemistry, University of Hull, U.K.
P J
PJ
Worsfold
I R
IR
Whiteside
H F
HF
Pfeiffer
H
H
Waldhoff
D002138:Calibration; D002480:Cellulase / Q000032:analysis*; D013053:Spectrophotometry
D002480:Cellulase