TY - JOUR AU - Lyczakowski, Jan J. AU - Wicher, Krzysztof B. AU - Terrett, Oliver M. AU - Faria-Blanc, Nuno AU - Yu, Xiaolan AU - Brown, David AU - Krogh, Kristian B. R. M. AU - Dupree, Paul AU - Busse-Wicher, Marta PY - 2017 DA - 2017/09/19 TI - Removal of glucuronic acid from xylan is a strategy to improve the conversion of plant biomass to sugars for bioenergy JO - Biotechnology for Biofuels SP - 224 VL - 10 IS - 1 AB - Plant lignocellulosic biomass can be a source of fermentable sugars for the production of second generation biofuels and biochemicals. The recalcitrance of this plant material is one of the major obstacles in its conversion into sugars. Biomass is primarily composed of secondary cell walls, which is made of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Xylan, a hemicellulose, binds to the cellulose microfibril and is hypothesised to form an interface between lignin and cellulose. Both softwood and hardwood xylan carry glucuronic acid side branches. As xylan branching may be important for biomass recalcitrance and softwood is an abundant, non-food competing, source of biomass it is important to investigate how conifer xylan is synthesised. SN - 1754-6834 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0902-1 DO - 10.1186/s13068-017-0902-1 ID - Lyczakowski2017 ER -