Cellulase (Karen Hasty)

Cellulase, Gene 644031540 Accession Number: ZP_03873981

What is cellulase? Cellulase is a family of enzymes that break down cellulose or the main component of plant cell walls. Cellulose is also sometimes secreted by bacteria in order to form biofilms. It is interesting to note that the wikipedia explanation of cellulase states that all other kinds of organisms (eukaryotes, plants, bacteria, and fungi) have this enzyme, yet nothing is mentioned about archaea. Regardless, JGI has called a gene cellulase in our species, and now we must decide whether this gene was called correctly. If it is called correctly, why would an archeae species have cellulase? Are these organisms secreting this enzyme in order to degrade plant cells to gain energy from these cells or is something else entirely going on?

Shine-delgarno sequence 7 bases upstream of this gene the sequence 'TCTCGGC' appears which may function as the shine delgarno sequence for this gene. This gene does not seem to be in the middle of an operon based on the genes upstream of it (these gene have an open reading frame facing the opposite direction of this gene's reading frame), so a shine-delgarno sequence ought to be present.

Blastx There are many significant matches to other cellulase and peptidase genes in other species.

What is peptidase? Since many of the blastx results came up as peptidases, it would be useful to know more about this enzyme.