Wheat straw (Triticum aestivum) is one of the lignocellulosic materials largely available worldwide and could be potentially used for biofuel production. Aiming the cost-effective utilization of wheat straw in the sugar-based biorefineries, co-cultures of Trichoderma reesei and Monascus purpureus were used for the enzymatic hydrolysis of the wheat straw biomass. The enzymatic breakdown of the dual-fungi-treated wheat straw was chemically analyzed through different enzyme/compositional assays, and the structural modifications were studied through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). For hydrolytic enzyme assays, the co-culture treatments resulted in significantly higher values (carboxymethyl cellulase (212.3 U/ml; p = 0.0173*), total cellulase (202 U/ml; p < 0.0001****), and xylanase (96.7 U/ml; p < 0.0001****) when compared with the readings of pure cultures. This hydrolytic activity resulted in the enhanced breakdown of wheat straw exhibiting a significant loss of 45.2% in lignin, 19.18% in cellulase, and 21.84% in hemicellulose contents. Furthermore, SEM and FTIR analysis of the co-culture treatments verified the improved biodegradation of wheat straw. Accumulatively, these results suggest a better approach for the effective use of dual-fungi for the lignocellulosic biomass breakdown and may have applications in bioethanol biorefineries using wheat straw as a sugar feedstock.

小麦秸秆（Triticum aestivum）是世界范围内广泛使用的木质纤维素材料之一，可潜在地用于生产生物燃料。为了在糖基生物精炼厂，里氏木霉和红曲霉的共培养中经济有效地利用小麦秸秆将其用于小麦秸秆生物质的酶促水解。通过不同的酶/组成分析对经双真菌处理的小麦秸秆的酶促分解进行化学分析，并通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）和傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）研究了结构修饰。对于水解酶测定，共培养处理产生的值明显更高（羧甲基纤维素酶（212.3 U / ml; p  = 0.0173 *），总纤维素酶（202 U / ml; p  <0.0001 ****）和木聚糖酶（ 96.7 U /毫升; p <0.0001 ****）与纯文化的读数相比。这种水解活性导致小麦秸秆分解的增强，木质素的损失显着下降45.2％，纤维素酶的损失为19.18％，半纤维素含量的损失为21.84％。此外，共培养处理的SEM和FTIR分析证实了麦草的生物降解得到了改善。累积地，这些结果提出了一种有效使用双真菌来降解木质纤维素生物质的更好方法，并且可能在使用麦草作为糖原料的生物乙醇生物精炼厂中得到应用。