Glucose and xylose are the two most abundant sugars obtained from the breakdown of plant biomass such as agricultural wastes.

The team started with basically a starvation diet of xylose, a sugar, along with formate and CO2.

Perhaps this means that xylose isomerase decreases the availability of a glucose substrate needed for the synthesis of trehalose.

One of the biggest challenges in breaking down biomass into useful chemicals suitable for making biofuels is finding ways to selectively depolymerise lignocellulosic biomass into its monomers: glucose, xylose and lignin.

One chemical that is produced when processing biowastes is a large sugar molecule called xylose.