N. Terrapon’s team guest: Stéphanie Perret, LCB Marseille – “A new arabinoxylandextrin import and degradation system in R. cellulolyticum, a new string to its bow”

Abstract

Ruminiclostridium cellulolyticum is an anaerobic, cellulolytic mesophilic bacterium that secretes and produces multi-enzyme complexes called cellulosomes, which are very efficient at degrading plant cell wall polysaccharides. Cellulosomes are thus able to degrade both cellulose and the various polysaccharides that form hemicellulose. We have discovered that in order to use arabinoxylan, the second most abundant polysaccharide in the plant cell wall, this bacterium has, in addition to cellulosomes, an intracellular degradation system associated with a system for importing rather large dextrins released during the degradation of arabinoxylan. The presentation will focus on the characterisation of this system, its role in vivo and its advantages.