Barton, F.E., II, 1988. Chemistry of lignocellulose: methods of analysis and consequences of structure. Anita. Feed Sci. Technol., 21: 279-286. Historically, the chemistry of lignocellulose has been the chemistry of the extraction, solvolysis, hydrolysis and analysis of cellulose and lignin from plant material. The analyses used to determine their relative content are empirical, i.e., the value...

BACKGROUND Degradation of the toxic compounds generated in the harsh pretreatment of lignocellulose is an inevitable step in reducing the toxin level for conducting practical enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol fermentation processes. Various detoxification methods have been tried and many negative outcomes were found using these methods, such as the massive freshwater usage and wastewater generat...

While it is known that several Actinobacteria produce enzymes that decompose polysaccharides or phenolic compounds in dead plant biomass, the occurrence of these traits in the environment remains largely unclear. The aim of this work was to screen isolated actinobacterial strains to explore their ability to produce extracellular enzymes that participate in the degradation of polysaccharides and...

Lignocellulose is an abundant and renewable resource that holds great promise for sustainable bioprocessing. However, unpretreated lignocellulose is recalcitrant to direct utilization by most microbes. Current methods to overcome this barrier include expensive pretreatment steps to liberate cellulose and hemicellulose from lignin. Anaerobic gut fungi possess complex cellulolytic machinery speci...

The wild-type ligninolytic actinomycete Streptomyces viridosporus T7A and two genetically manipulated strains with enhanced abilities to produce a water-soluble lignin degradation intermediate, an acid-precipitable polymeric lignin (APPL), were grown on lignocellulose in solid-state fermentation cultures. Culture filtrates were periodically collected, analyzed for APPL, and assayed for extracel...

The digestion of lignocellulose is attracting attention both in terms of basic research into its metabolism by microorganisms and animals, and also as a means of converting plant biomass into biofuels. Limnoriid wood borers are unusual because, unlike other wood-feeding animals, they do not rely on symbiotic microbes to help digest lignocellulose. The absence of microbes in the digestive tract ...

The wood-boring beetle Anoplophora chinensis Forster, native to China, has recently spread to North America and Europe causing serious damage to ornamental and forest trees. The gut microbial community associated with these xylophagous beetles is of interest for potential biotechnological applications in lignocellulose degradation and development of pest-control measures. In this study the gut ...

The relationship between xylophagous termites and the protists resident in their hindguts is a textbook example of symbiosis. The essential steps of lignocellulose degradation handled by these protists allow the host termites to thrive on a wood diet. There has never been a comprehensive analysis of lignocellulose degradation by protists, however, as it has proven difficult to establish these s...

In addition to evolving eusocial lifestyles, two equally fascinating aspects of termite biology are their mutualistic relationships with gut symbionts and their use of lignocellulose as a primary nutrition source. Termites are also considered excellent model systems for studying the production of bioethanol and renewable bioenergy from 2nd generation (non-food) feedstocks. While the idea that g...

Being the only sustainable source of organic carbon, biomass is playing an ever-increasingly important role in our energy landscape. The conversion of renewable lignocellulosic biomass into liquid fuels is particularly attractive but extremely challenging due to the inertness and complexity of lignocellulose. Here we describe the direct hydrodeoxygenation of raw woods into liquid alkanes with m...