Fig. 4

Effect of linker length in designer cellulosome enzyme components. Comparative degradation of microcrystalline cellulose by various forms of trivalent designer cellulosomes containing the following components: (1) the chimaeric GH5, GH9 and GH48 (with short linkers); (2) the chimaeric GH5, GH9 and GH48 (with linkers); (3) the chimaeric GH5, GH9 (with linker) and GH48 (without linker), and (4) the chimaeric GH5, GH9 (without linker) and GH48 (with linker) as indicated by the pictograms (as defined in Fig. 1). Enzymatic activity is defined as mM of released sugars after 24 h incubation of the enzymes with 4% of Avicel substrate at 75 °C. Each reaction was conducted in triplicate; the data represent the mean ± SD, where an asterisk (*) indicates p < 0.05 (two-tailed t test)