Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, the most abundant biopolymers on Earth, make up the structural matrix of plant biomass, providing essential renewable resources for bioenergy and sustainable materials. Despite their importance, the nanoscale mechanochemical processes that constitute the assembly of lignocellulose during the formation of the secondary cell wall of plants remain poorly understood, hindering progress in biomass conversion technologies.
We have therefore synthesized a biomimetic model system composed of cellulose-hemicellulose nanofibrils to study guaiacyl lignin polymerization in a relevant physiological context. Using advanced techniques such as near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM), infrared spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), we have shown that the presence of hemicellulose significantly modulates lignin deposition and alters the distribution of its inter-unit bonds. Conversely, pure cellulose compounds support a significantly higher β-O-4′ bond content, resulting in a more uniform nanoscale lignin coating.
Our work contributes to a better understanding of how hemicellulose sites, that are both sterically and chemically accessible, direct radical coupling during lignification, fundamentally reshaping the nanometric architecture of lignin. These results deepen our understanding of the mechanics of plant cell wall biosynthesis and may inform strategies to improve the efficiency of biomass deconstruction for sustainable bioenergy applications.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.5c09006
References : How hemicellulose shapes the structure of lignin in artificial plant cell walls, Patrick J. Snyder, Valentin Allard, Samarthya Bhagia, Rubye H. Farahi, Aude L. Lereu, Mikael P. Backlund, Ali Passian, ACS Nano, November 2025
Partners :
- Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
- Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centrale Med, Institut Fresnel, Marseille, France
- Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States
- Quantum Sensing and Computing, Quantum Information Science, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States
Keywords : Cellulose−hemicellulose nanofibrils, Lignin polymerization, Biomimetic plant cell wall model, scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM), Infrared nanospectroscopy, Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
