Isolation and characterization of a thermostable cellulase-producing Fusarium chlamydosporum

A thermostable cellulase-producing fungus, HML 0278, was identified as Fusarium chlamydosporum by morphological characteristics and ITS rDNA sequence analysis. HML 0278 produced extracellular cellulases in solid-state fermentation using sugar cane bassage as the carbon source. Native-PAGE analysis demonstrated that this fungus strain was capable of producing the three major components of cellulases and xylanase, with a yield of 281.8 IU/g for CMCase, 182.4 IU/g for cellobiohydrolase, 135.2 IU/g for beta-glucosidase, 95.2 IU/g for filter paper activity, and 4,720 IU/g for xylanase. More importantly, the CMCase and beta-glucosidase produced by HML 0278 showed stable enzymatic activities within pH 4-9 and pH 4-10, and at temperatures below 70 and 60A degrees C, respectively.