Fig. 2: Anaerobic gut fungi from four genera solubilize diverse aromatic monomers from lignocellulose.

Five strains of anaerobic gut fungi were grown on three different lignified substrates, and all released monoaromatic chemicals into the solution after growth. Lignocellulose types tested are poplar, switchgrass and sorghum. a, The total pressure accumulated over 10 days as a proxy for fungal growth. b, The mean difference between the concentration of various monoaromatics before and after fungal growth. Abbreviations for monoaromatic compounds are the same as in Fig. 1. CAT, catechol; V, vanillin. The vertical order of the legend matches the order of the stacked bars. As the growth medium is undefined, the values for uninoculated controls are subtracted from experimental values to calculate the values in b. The names of anaerobic fungi are as follows: N. californiae, N. lanatii, A. robustus, Piromyces sp. E1M and C. churrovis. The values shown in both panels are the means of biological replicates, and the error bars in a represent the standard deviations of these replicates (n = 3).