Researchers discover how two bacterial enzymes work together to break lignin

In Texas, in a study that could point the way to biofuels processes of the future, scientists from Rice University, the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Joint BioEnergy Institute at Emeryville, Calif., have discovered how two bacterial enzymes work as a team to break apart lignin.

The original goal was to design a single new enzyme that could do the job of several found in nature. But that turned out to be an impossible task, in part because lignin molecules are irregular. They’re made of hundreds of components that twist either to the left or the right, but the pattern of twists doesn’t repeat, and an enzyme that’s tailored to break a left-handed bond won’t cleave a right-handed one.

The researchers found that Sphingobium bacteria use two enzymes, known as LigE and LigF, to attack lignin as a team.