PNNL: New artificial enzyme breaks down tough, woody lignin
Summary
“Our bio-mimicking enzyme showed promise in degrading real lignin, which is considered to be a breakthrough,” said Xiao Zhang, a corresponding author on the paper and associate professor in WSU’s Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. Because lignin turns yellows when exposed to air, the wood products industry removes it as part of the fine papermaking process. A recent review article by Zhang’s research team outlines the challenges and barriers toward the application of lignin degrading enzymes. In the current study, the researchers replaced the peptides that surround the active site of natural enzymes with protein-like molecules called peptoids. Tengyue Jian, Wenchao Yang, Peng Mu, Xin Zhang of PNNL and Yicheng Zhou and Peipei Wang of WSU also contributed to the research.
