Differences in the Thermal Degradation Products of Various Lignins from Arabidopsis thaliana L.

Characterization of the thermal degradation products of various Arabidopsis lignins was performed by pyrolysis GC/MS. The lignin from a wild type showed high intensities of both guaiacyl and syringyl units and low intensity of p-hydroxyphenyl unit. Guaiacyl units mainly appeared in fah1-2 mutant, and syringyl units appeared in ferulate-5-hydrolylase overexpressed using the cinnamate-4-hydroxylase promoter. Thermal degradation patterns of various lignins from Arabidopsis plants are in good agreement with those obtained through alkaline nitrobenzene oxidation.