Lignin depolymerization generates a mixture of numerous compounds that are difficult to separate cost-effectively. To address this heterogeneity issue, microbes have been employed to 'biologically funnel' a broad range of compounds present in depolymerized lignin into common central metabolites that can be converted into a single desirable product. Because the composition of depolymerized lignin varies significantly with the type of biomass and the depolymerization method, microbes should be selected and engineered by considering this compositional variation. An ideal microbe must efficiently metabolize all relevant lignin-derived compounds regardless of the compositional variation of feedstocks, but discovering or developing such a perfect microbe is very challenging. Instead, developing multiple tailored microbes to tolerate a given mixture of lignin-derived compounds and to convert most of these into a target product is more practical. This review summarizes recent progress toward the development of such microbes for lignin valorization and offers future directions.

中文翻译：

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定制微生物以升级木质素。

木质素解聚会产生多种难以经济有效地分离的化合物的混合物。为了解决这种异质性问题，微生物已被用于将解聚木质素中存在的各种化合物“生物学漏斗”转化为常见的中心代谢物，这些代谢物可以转化为单一的理想产物。由于解聚木质素的组成随生物质类型和解聚方法的不同而显着变化，因此应通过考虑这种组成变化来选择和设计微生物。无论原料的成分如何，理想的微生物都必须有效地代谢所有相关的木质素衍生化合物，但发现或开发这样一种完美的微生物非常具有挑战性。反而，开发多种定制微生物以耐受给定的木质素衍生化合物混合物，并将其中大部分转化为目标产品更实用。本综述总结了开发此类微生物以促进木质素增值的最新进展，并提供了未来的方向。