Commercially available dialysis tubing and membranes are made up of regenerated cellulose. can these membranes be degraded by cellulase enzymes? I believe that these membranes may be attacked more readily than crystalline cellulose.
YES; it is not a good idea to dialyse cellulases (from what I remember but it is now over 25 years ago there were some very expensive dialysis tubing in another material).
I fully agree with Catherine. I lost quite a few preps trying to dialyze them. However, it is sometimes possible to perform dialysis under conditions that minimize cellulase activity: low temperature for cellulases from thermophiles that have a high temperature optimum, or pH at which activity is minimized (provided that inactivation is reversible,, of course). Otherwise, gel filtration is an option for desalting, but beware that some cellulases will stick to Sephadex in the presence of salts. Actually, this can be put to use for the purification of some cellulases. See Béguin et al., 1978. Eur. J. Biochem. 87, 525-531
thanks a lot for wonderful insights. I only asked because some suppliers say that their membranes are not degradable and I was not sure if regenerated or esterified membranes might be resistant to cellulases.
The previous answers are right on target. I recall an experiment in which a dialysis bag entirely disappeared except for the knot at the ends. The way we often get around that problem is by diafiltration, using non-cellulosic ultrafiltration membranes in a stirred cell (e.g., Amicon) or a tangential-flow setup, such as a Millipore Pellicon. Several cycles of concentration and dilution with buffer will usually work well.
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