The minor wall-networks between monolignols and interlinked-phenolics predominantly affect biomass enzymatic digestibility in Miscanthus

PLoS One. 2014 Aug 18;9(8):e105115. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105115. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Plant lignin is one of the major wall components that greatly contribute to biomass recalcitrance for biofuel production. In this study, total 79 representative Miscanthus germplasms were determined with wide biomass digestibility and diverse monolignol composition. Integrative analyses indicated that three major monolignols (S, G, H) and S/G ratio could account for lignin negative influence on biomass digestibility upon NaOH and H2SO4 pretreatments. Notably, the biomass enzymatic digestions were predominately affected by the non-KOH-extractable lignin and interlinked-phenolics, other than the KOH-extractable ones that cover 80% of total lignin. Furthermore, a positive correlation was found between the monolignols and phenolics at p<0.05 level in the non-KOH-extractable only, suggesting their tight association to form the minor wall-networks against cellulases accessibility. The results indicated that the non-KOH-extractable lignin-complex should be the target either for cost-effective biomass pretreatments or for relatively simply genetic modification of plant cell walls in Miscanthus.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biomass
  • Cellulases / metabolism
  • Lignin / metabolism*
  • Phenols / metabolism*
  • Poaceae / genetics
  • Poaceae / metabolism*

Substances

  • Phenols
  • Lignin
  • Cellulases

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by grants from 111 Project (B08032), the Open Project of Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biomass-based Energy and Enzyme Technology (JSBEET1204), the 973 Specific Pre-project (2010CB134401) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No2013PY061). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.