Acetivibrio cellulolyticus, an isolate from an established sewage sludge culture, degraded cellulose powder, Avicel cellulose, and cellobiose. The organism showed maximum cellulose degradation in a medium containing 10 g/L of cellulose and it could also degrade cellulose in media containing up to 75 g/L of cellulose. During the exponential growth phase, large quantities of cellulolytic enzymes were found extracellularly whereas cellobiase activity was cell associated. The crude culture supernate contained endo- and exo-glucanase activities with a pH optimum at 5.0 and a temperature optimum at 50 °C. Maximum cellulase activities were detected in 2- to 3-day-old cultures grown on 1 g/L of cellulose. Cellulose concentration above 10 g/L caused the adsorption of these enzymes to the substrate and consequently lowered their detection in the supernate. The activities at 50 °C for endoglucanase, exoglucanase, and filter paper degrading ability, expressed as micrograms of glucose equivalents released per minute per milligram of protein culture supernate, were 510, 135, and 40 respectively.
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Saddler et al. (1980) studied this question.