Signal peptide of cellulase

Cellulase is an enzyme playing a crucial role in biotechnology industries ranging from textile to biofuel because of tremendous amount of cellulose produced in plant. In order to improve cellulase productivity, huge resource has been spent in search for good cellulases from microorganism in remote areas and in creation of ideal cellulase by engineering. However, not much attention is given to the secretion of cellulases from cell into extracellular space, where a cellulase plays its enzymatic role. In this minireview, the signal peptides, which lead secreted proteins to specific secretion systems and scatter in literature, are reviewed. The patterns of signal peptides are checked against 4,101 cellulases documented in UniProtKB, the largest protein database in the world, to determine how these cellulases are secreted. Simultaneous review on both literature and cellulases from the database not only provides updated knowledge on signal peptides but also indicates the gap in our research.