C. hutchinsonii is an aerobic, gram-negative, soil, microorganism that exhibits gliding motility, enabling it to move quickly over surfaces and is capable of cellulose degradation.
[2] Winogradsky found several cellulose decomposers which were morphologically similar to Spirochaeta cytophaga, a bacterium discovered in 1919 by microbiologists Hutchinson and Clayton.
[1] Cytophaga hutchinsonii is capable of digesting crystalline cellulose to glucose in a contact dependent manner.
[7] They also contain β-glucosidases (bgl), enzymes that hydrolyze the final step, turning cellobiose (a disaccharide) into glucose.
Unlike other β-glucosidases, BglA’s hydrolytic activity does not decrease with longer substrate chains like cyclodextrins (cellotriose and cellotetraose).
The processive endoglucanases, which can catalyze several enzymes before releasing the cellulose substrate, could play a role in allowing C. hutchinsonii to degrade without encoding separate cellobiohydrolases.
[5] Additionally, adding degrading cellodextrins in the periplasm could increase efficiency by reducing loss of cellobiose to competing microorganisms.