Enrichment of lignin-degrading anaerobic microbial communities from Igneada floodplain forest and their characterization through metagenomic approach

Lignin is one of the most substantial obstacles in the evaluation of lignocellulosic compounds due to its complex chemical structure. Although there are numerous approaches including pretreatment for lignin digestion in the literature, there is no optimized system to date. In this study, the samples taken from the Igneada floodplain forests were enriched in an anaerobic environment where the only carbon source was lignin. As a result of the physicochemical and metagenomic analyzes of the samples, the existence of an anaerobic microbial community capable of digesting lignin was found and the species that might be responsible for the decomposition were pointed out. It has been suggested that this study, in which enriched environmental samples were sequenced for the first time using MinION, could provide a guidebook for the characterization of such microbial communities.