Distinct Miscanthus lignocellulose improves fungus secreting cellulases and xylanases for consistently enhanced biomass saccharification of diverse bioenergy crops

Abstract Bioenergy crops provide enormous renewable biomass resources convertible for biofuel production, but lignocellulose recalcitrance fundamentally determines its enzymatic saccharification at high cost and low efficiency. In this study, total 30 diverse Miscanthus lignocellulose substrates were incubated with T. reesei strain to secret lignocellulose-degradation enzymes, and their major wall polymers features (cellulose crystallinity, hemicellulose arabinose and lignin H-monomer) were meanwhile examined with distinct impacts on the enzyme activities. Using characteristic Miscanthus (Msi62) de-lignin residue as inducing substrate with the reesei strain, this study detected that the Msi62-induced enzymes were of consistently higher enhancements on enzymatic saccharification of various lignocellulose residues examined in 17 grassy and woody bioenergy crops, particularly for the hemicellulose hydrolyses, compared to other two reesei-secreted cellulases and three commercial enzymes. Notably, based on SDS-gel protein separation profiling and LC-MS/MS analysis, the Msi62-induced enzymes consist of distinct cellulases (CBHI, BG, EGII) compositions and high-activity xylanases. Therefore, this study has demonstrated an applicable approach to achieve the optimal cellulases and xylanases cocktails that enable for low-costly and high-efficient enzymatic saccharification of diverse lignocellulose sources, providing a potential strategy for large-scale biofuel production in all major bioenergy crops.