06 February 2019 - Lignin at the nanoscale: impact on recalcitrance

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06 February 2019 - Lignin at the nanoscale: impact on recalcitrance

06 February 2019 - Lignin at the nanoscale: impact on recalcitrance

Lignin is a major component of lignocellulose which makes the plant cell walls and is considered as a relevant feedstock for making biofuels, chemicals and renewable materials. But lignin limits the activity of enzymes by making some pore entanglements thus limiting access to polysaccharides and by interacting non-productively with them.

In the Lignoprog project funded by ANR, one of the goals was to understand how structure of lignin at the nanoscale could impact enzymatic hydrolysis. Thanks to a strong collaboration between the Laboratory for Research in Nanosciences from URCA and FARE, lignocellulosic model films have been prepared with variable contents in lignin. A protocol has been developed for dynamically following over time by atomic force microscopy the structural modifications of the films during hydrolysis. Importantly, quantification of the images has been carried out, highlighting a correlation between hydrolysis efficiency and lignin. In addition to this important experimental setup, results obtained show that lignin distribution is more important to consider than lignin content to explain recalcitrance, such an information could only be obtained by nanoscale analysis.

Read: Lambert E, Aguié-Béghin V, Dessaint D, Foulon L, Chabbert B, Paës G, Molinari M. Real time and quantitative imaging of lignocellulosic films hydrolysis by Atomic Force Microscopy reveals lignin recalcitrance at nanoscale. Biomacromolecules 2019, 20, 515-527. DOI

Contact: Dr Gabriel Paës, gabriel.paes@inra.fr

Modification date : 06 June 2023 | Publication date : 06 February 2019 | Redactor : G. Paës