Balancing the pretreatment effect of deep eutectic solvents on biomass and the activity of β-glucosidase originating from Paenibacillus sp. LLZ1

The two major impediments to biomass resourcing are the catalytic efficiency of enzymes and the effectiveness of biomass pretreatment. In this study, six genes encoding β-Glucosidases (BGLs) derived from Paenibacillus sp. LLZ1 were cloned and expressed. The activity of BGL-F, which had the highest enzyme activity, was 24.1 U/mg, which was 39.8–83.7% higher than that of the other BGLs. Molecular docking and surface charge analyses showed that the binding energy of BGL-F to cellobiose and its electronegative ligand-binding pocket were greater than those of other BGLs. On the other hand, by calculating and comparing the Kamlet–Taft (KT) values of deep eutectic solvent (DES) composed of different hydrogen bond donors (HBD) and hydrogen bond acceptors (HDA), it was found that DES composed of betaine and glycerol had the highest α value of 0.97, meaning that it could provide the highest hydrogen bonding capacity, and thus it had the best pretreatment effect on biomass. Analysis by circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy revealed a decrease in α-helix and an increase in β-strand in the secondary structure of the DES-treated BGL-F, implying an increase in enzyme activity and stability. This result was also confirmed experimentally by the fact that the Km and Vmax of the enzyme in the DES system increased by 13.2% and 57.9%, respectively, and the inactivation rate (kd) decreased by 21.4%. The results of this study showed that DES consisting of glycerol-betaine achieved a better balance between the promotion of enzyme activity and biomass pretreatment.