A novel extracellular esterase was separated from culture supernatants of the basidiomycete Coprinopsis cinerea by means of foam fractionation. The parameters pH value, gas flow rate, addition of detergents, and the column design were varied to optimise the transport of the active enzyme into the foam phase. On the 70-mL scale, a recovery of activity of 79% with an enrichment factor of 10.5 was obtained at pH 7 and 20 mL air min(-1) within 15 min. The enriched enzyme was characterized biochemically by semi-native SDS-PAGE and IEF electrophoresis with activity staining. Peptide sequencing was performed after tryptic digestion by electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. Homology searches revealed significant similarities to cutinases of various ascomycetes and to C. cinerea genome data recently annotated as cutinases. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.