22 November 2018 - How nanopores in lignocellulose impact enzymatic hydrolysis

22 November 2018 - How nanopores in lignocellulose impact enzymatic hydrolysis

Lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysis is limited by enzyme accessibility to their substrate. Until now, relationship between nanoporosity and hydrolysis dynamics had not been studied.

In the frame of Mickaël Herbaut's PhD thesis and ANR-funded Lignoprog project, poplar samples have been pre-treated following two different ways then hydrolysed. In complement, porosity of the samples has been measured by RMN together with accessibility measured by the FRAP technique with fluorescent probes of sizes representative of those of enzymes. Accessibility was evaluated before, during, and after hydrolysis. Results show that accessibility strongly depends on probe size, not on hydrolysis time. Also, pore size should be at least 5 times higher than probe size to favour probe mobility. A probable explanation is that, during hydrolysis, deconstruction of polysaccharides releases space that is occupied by lignin which is re-organized, leading to pores' entanglements.

Read: Herbaut M, Zoghlami A, Paës G (2018) Dynamical assessment of fluorescent probes mobility in poplar cell walls reveals nanopores govern saccharification. Biotechnology for Biofuels 11, 271.

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

Modification date : 06 June 2023 | Publication date : 21 November 2018 | Redactor : G. Paës