Species-wide Metabolic Interaction Network for Understanding Natural Lignocellulose Digestion in Termite Gut Microbiota.

The structural complexity of lignocellulosic biomass hinders the extraction of cellulose, and it has remained a challenge for decades in the biofuel production process. However, wood-feeding organisms like termite have developed an efficient natural lignocellulolytic system with the help of specialized gut microbial symbionts. Despite having an enormous amount of high-throughput metagenomic data, specific contributions of each individual microbe to achieve this lignocellulolytic functionality remains unclear.