Upgrade of plant cell wall material to more valuable products by enzymaticaly extraction of bioactive molecules such as phenolics, branched and linear xylooligosaccharides which exhibit antioxidant, antimicrobial, bioregulatory and prebiotic activities.
On-going and planned projects are the use of novel discovered enzymes such as feruloyl esterases, glucuronoyl esterases and etherases responsible for the cleavage of lignin-carbohydrate linkages for the tailored made modification of lignin-carbohydrate complexes in order to enhance their biological activity. These lignin–carbohydrate complexes exhibited three unique biological activities. First, they showed immunopotentiating activity such as induction of antitumor, antimicrobial and antiparasite activities and the endogenous production of cytokines in mouse. Second, they showed a broad antiviral spectrum based on effects that depended on the polymeric phenylpropanoid character of the lignin and not the carbohydrate residues. Third, lignins or its carbohydrate complexes augmented the activities of vitamin C:radical-scavenging activity at lower concentration and apoptosis induction at higher concentration.