Natural Syringyl Mediators Accelerate Laccase-Catalyzed β-O-4 Cleavage and Cα-Oxidation of a Guaiacyl Model Substrate via an Aggregation Mechanism

Laccase-mediator systems (LMSs) have been intensively investigated in lignin degradation. Although only natural metabolites are available for fungal lignin degradation, mediator molecules from metabolites have received substantially less attention than artificial organic-synthetic compounds. It remains unclear which metabolites can accelerate laccase-catalyzed reactions and how those natural mediators influence lignin degradation. In this work, we evaluated