Team:TzuChiU Formosa/Modeling

Cellulase is used to break down the cellulose into monosaccharide. Cellulose is a glucose polymer connected through a beta (1-4) glycosidic linkages. Benedict’s test is carried out to test the presence of reducing sugar, such as. The reducing sugar reduces copper(II) ions in these test solutions to copper(I), which then forms a brick red copper(I) oxide precipitate. The color would range from green to brick red respectively depends on the amount of reducing sugar present in the solution. It can detect the concentration of the reducing sugar under the absorbance condition OD645.

Cellulose (beta-1,4 glucan) is the most plentiful biopolymer in nature and is an crucial raw material for many industries. It is synthesized as extracellular fibrils by cellulose synthase not only in plants but also in some bacteria.

Bacteria with cellulose synthase gene use Isopropyl-β- D -1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) as the inducer stimulating the production of protein. In our system, IPTG act as the inducer of the R0011 promoter, which then activate the operon. The activated acs operon encodes the cellulose synthase to synthesize cellulose. The reaction lasts two hours and every two hour we would need to collect the purified cellulose. The nett weight is recorded and the mechanism of cellulose activity on pure cellulose substrates is identified. Lastly, the Benedict’s solution is added to find out the absorbance (optical density [O.D.]) value, in order to calculate the amount of monosaccharide that cellulose can produce.