Exploring archaeal resources for biomass-derived pentose utilization: pathways, extremozymes, and bioprocessing applications

Currently, energy scarcity and the demand for sustainable carbon resources have increased interest in the conversion of biomass-derived sugars. Compared with hexoses, plant-derived pentoses, especially xylose and arabinose, are still inefficiently utilized by many microorganisms. This limitation reduces the conversion efficiency of biomass resources and highlights the need to explore new microbial pathways for pentose transformation. With the development of genomic sequencing, many previously unknown archaeal lineages have been identified from microbial dark matter, providing new opportunities to discover unconventional metabolic pathways and enzymes. Recent advances in biotechnology have further highlighted the potential of archaea in the utilization of plant pentoses. In this review, we summarize current progress in plant pentose utilization by archaea, focusing on the metabolism of xylose and arabinose. We also discuss the major metabolic pathways, key enzymes, and regulatory features involved in archaeal pentose conversion. Finally, the potential applications of archaeal pentose metabolism in industrial biotechnology, biomass conversion, and bioproduct synthesis are discussed.