Isolation of cellulase enzyme from brown garden snail (Cornu aspersum) for the saccharification of waste paper materials

Garden snails (Cornu aspersum) have been sacrificed by drowning the snails overnight in water. The visceral organs (inside the shell organs) have been separated from the foot as well as the shell and homogenized using tris−HCl buffer, pH 5. The homogenate of visceral organs was dialysed in distilled water at 4 °C for 18 h where after the dialysed material was used to bio-convert the cellulose component of various waste paper materials into fermentable sugars such as glucose. Saccharification of the waste cellulose materials was performed with the extracted snail cellulase during ten consecutive incubation periods of 2 h each. The amount of sugars produced during cellulase action on waste cellulose was determined by the dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method. All incubations were performed in triplicate and the percent saccharification of each paper material was determined as a fraction of the paper material exposed to cellulase action. • Cellulase extracted from brown garden snail; • Saccharification of waste paper using garden snail cellulase.