The pathway of lignin biosynthesis has been well documented, However,
there are still questions because of the lack of knowledge about. the
exact chemical structure of lignin, caused by the restriction of analy
tical procedures used and/or the interpretation of analytical results.
The presence of 5-hydroxyguaiacyl nuclei in lignin of a brown midrib
mutant (bm3) of maize has been, established using a. thioacidolysis. I
n this paper, it was confirmed using pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass
spectrometry (PY-GC/MS) that in addition to bmr mutants of some tropi
cal grasses, lignins of their normal counterparts and some temperate a
nd tropical angiosperms woody plants are composed of 5-hydroxyguaiacyl
nuclei, in addition to guaiacyl and syringyl nuclei. Based on the res
ults, it is suggested that 3(3,4-dihydroxy-5-methoxyphenyl)-propen-1-o
l, which is synthesised from 3(3,4-dihydroxy-5-methoxyphenyl)-propioni
c acid (5-hydroxyferulic acid) is also invoked in dehydrogenative poly
merisation by perioxidase during the biogenesis of lignin of some spec
ies of plants. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.