Phenylpropanoid metabolism is one of the most important metabolisms in plants, yielding
more than 8,000 metabolites contributing to plant development and plant–environment …

Highlights•To date, metabolites from more than 10 different metabolic classes have been
identified as lignin building blocks, totaling 35 monomers.•Despite this flexibility, limitations …

Lignin is an abundant biopolymer with a high carbon content and high aromaticity. Despite
its potential as a raw material for the fuel and chemical industries, lignin remains the most …

The domestication of forest trees for a more sustainable fiber bioeconomy has long been
hindered by the complexity and plasticity of lignin, a biopolymer in wood that is recalcitrant to …

Lignin is conventionally defined as being formed by the oxidative polymerization of three
main monolignols, p-coumaryl alcohol, coniferyl alcohol, and sinapyl alcohol, that are …

Highlights•Plant lignification is highly plastic.•Designer lignins may satisfy biological
requirements while reducing recalcitrance.•Engineered lignins may be shorter, less …

The lignin biosynthetic pathway has been studied for more than a century but has
undergone major revisions over the past decade. Significant progress has been made in …

Lignins are complex natural polymers resulting from oxidative coupling of, primarily, 4-
hydroxyphenylpropanoids. An understanding of their nature is evolving as a result of …

The processes underlying lignification, which for many years have been the near-exclusive
purview of chemists and biochemists, have more recently been approached using both …

NMR fingerprinting of the components of finely divided plant cell walls swelled in DMSO has
been recently described. Cell wall gels, produced directly in the NMR tube with perdeutero …