Figure 1

Schematic view of suberin (a), showing the linear aliphatic ester bonds and the acylglycerol ester bonds (continuous and dashed circles, respectively) and the ATR-FTIR spectra of isolated suberin (a), namely untreated (b) and recovered at the first (c) and the last (d) time points of incubation with Aspergillus nidulans . Major peaks, which can be almost exclusively assigned to suberin, are at 2921 cm^-1 (1), 2851 cm^-1 (2) and 1737 cm^-1 (3). The remaining peaks are simultaneously assigned to the fungal cell wall and either to suberin [1158 cm^-1 (7) and 1635 cm^-1 (4)], lignin [1511 cm^-1 (5) and 1424 cm^-1 (6)] or to polysaccharides and lignin [1034 cm^-1 (8)].