A Promising Mystery by Michaela Mann Fierce competition drove prehistoric plants upward in search of sunlight. Breakthrough research at Washington State University now points to mechanisms that control lignin formation. It also has implications for a variety of modern dilemmas, from protecting plants from disease to the manufacture of plastics, and from improving paper products to breaking down and recycling plant-based waste.
Lignins are highly polymerized, complex carbon-based compounds.
In 1874 coniferyl alcohol was identified as a component of lignin, beginning the long process of unraveling its chemical structure. Free radicals are often associated with cancer cell formation and aging. Yet free radical reactions are critical to many animal and plant biological processes, including formation of pigments in insects, cell walls in algae and fungi, as well as several biosynthetic pathways in vascular plants. The implications of understanding free-radical coupling, then, extend far beyond lignin formation. This assumption bothered Norman Lewis and other members of a research team at Washington State University.