Fig. 1

Schematic view of the proteins used in this study. The key defines the symbols used for the protein modules, which are assembled into a cellulosomal complex. The bacterial or archaeal source of each cohesin and dockerin module is color-coded as follows: red, Cl. thermocellum; purple, Cl. clariflavum; brown, A. fulgidus. Upper case characters (T, V and G) indicate the source of the cohesin modules and lower case (t, v and g) indicate the source of the dockerin module. All the catalytic modules originate from Ca. bescii, the numbers correspond to their GH family (GH9, GH48, GH5). A previously designed trivalent scaffoldin, Scaf20L [21], was also used as a control. In this case, two cohesins from mesophilic bacteria—Acetivibrio cellulolyticus (powder blue) and Bacteroides cellulosolvens (light green)—were used in addition to a cohesin from Cl. thermocellum. Scaf20L was used to incorporate orthologous Cl. thermocellum enzymes into a cellulosome to compare its action with the hyperthermophilic Cl. bescii-based complex prepared in this work