Fig 1. Effects of cattle saliva on cellulose degradation.

(a) Enhancement effect of cattle saliva. Effect of cattle saliva addition on the production of reducing sugar from micro-crystalline cellulose. Reaction mixtures containing 10 μg/mL cellulase and 0.8% (wt%) cellulose were incubated in the presence or absence of 10% cattle saliva at 50°C for 24 h. Effects of (b) cellulase concentration, (c) incubation time and (d) cattle saliva concentration on reducing sugar production. In (b), concentrations of cellulase used were 0, 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 μg/mL, while the concentration of cellulose was kept same as in (a) above and the reaction mixtures were incubated at 50°C for 24 h. In (c), different incubation times were used (0, 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h) while keeping the composition of the reaction mixture same as in (a) above. In (d), different concentrations of cattle saliva were used here: 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 10%; concentrations of cellulase and cellulose and reaction conditions were same as in (a) above. All experiments were performed in triplicate and results are expressed as average means. Error bars indicate ± standard deviations. Values labeled with asterisk are statistically different as established by Student's t-test (P < 0.05).