Lignin valorization using biological approach

Due to the structural complexity and recalcitrance nature of lignin, its depolymerization into monomeric units becomes one of the biggest challenges in the bioconversion of lignin into value‐added products. Depolymerization of lignin produces a blend of many compounds that are problematic for isolating components in a cost‐effective way. Lignin valorization using a biological approach facilitates sustainable and commercially viable biorefineries. The use of microbes for the conversion of depolymerized lignin compounds into target products can be a solution to the heterogeneity issue. Several studies have been carried out to develop robust strains that can utilize all relevant lignin‐derived compounds, but constructing these strains is difficult. As an alternative, designing multiple microbes to convert a mixture of various compounds into the desired product seems realistic. This review provides an overview of lignin bioconversion using various approaches such as metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Ligninolytic strains have a broad enzymatic machine for depolymerization of lignin and its conversion into intermediates such as catechol or protocatechuate. These intermediates can be further converted to metabolite products such as polyhydroxyalkanoates and triacylglycerol. Synthetic biology offers encouraging methodologies to construct pathways for lignin conversion and to engineer ligninolytic microbes as prospective strains for lignin bioconversion.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Biotechnology and applied biochemistry

• Publication date

  2020-07-29

• Fields of study

  Biology, Materials Science, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/bab.1995PMID 32725827
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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