A cellulose hydrolytic enzyme was isolated from the stomach juice of Ampullaria crossean, a kind of herbivorous mollusca. The enzyme was purified 45.3-fold to homogenety by ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE-Sephadex A-50 column, Bio-gel P-100 gel filtration column, and-phenyl-Sepharose CL-4B column chromatography. The enzyme was designated as cellulase EGX The purified enzyme is a multi-functional enzyme with the activities of exo-beta-1,4-glucanase (14.84 U/mg for p-nitrophenyl beta-D-cellobioside), endo-beta-1,4-glucanase (40.3 U/mg for carboxymethyl cellulose), and endo-beta-1,4-xylanase (196 U/mg for soluble xylan from birch-wood). The monovalent anions such as F-, Cl-, Br-, I-, and NO3- are essential for its exo-beta-1,4-glucanase activity but have no effect on the activity for xylan, while I- higher than 5 mM would inhibit the exo-beta-1,4-glucanase activity. The monovalent anions Cl- and Br- activate its endo-beta-1,4-glucanase activity. Binding of Cl- enhances the thermostability of EGX, but does not affect its fluorescence emission spectrum. The molecular mass of EGX is 41.5 kDa, as determined by SDS-PAGE. The pI value is about pH 7.35. The xylan hydrolytic activity of EGX reaches to the maximum between pH 4.8 and 6.0 and the pNPC hydrolytic activity reaches the maximum between pH 4.8 and 5.6, while that for CMC hydrolytic activity is between pH 4.4 and 4.8. Preliminary results showed that the enzyme was secreted by the mollusca itself. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.