A simple one step synthesis of pinoresinol and its derivatives-active components of Du-Zhong (Eucommia ulmoides)-from coniferyl alcohol and p-courmaryl alcohol with higher yields was achieved by Rhus laccases (RL) catalysis in water miscible organic solvents. Biomacromolecules dehydrogenative polymers (DHP) were only synthesized by fungal laccases, not by RL. The structures and the reaction mechanism were discussed to promote the understanding of the function of laccases in the process of lignin biosynthesis.lignan, laccases, pinoresinol, dehydrogenative polymers, enzymatic mechanism Lignans and neolignans, consisting of two phenylpropanoid units (Figure 1), are widely distributed in plants [1][2][3][4] . Although phillyrin and pinoresinol, kinds of lignan analog, were separated by Carboncini in 1863 and Bamberger in 1894 respectively, they had not been taken seriously until podophyllotoxin analogue-Eptoside was used as an anticancer drug in the seventies of the last century [5][6][7] . Now podophyllotoxin, pinoresinol and its derivatives (active components of Du-Zhong [Eucommia ulmoides], a Chinese herbal medicine which has been used for several thousand years in China [8] due to its nontoxicity and antihypertensive activity) and other lignan compounds are used in cancer chemotherapy, antiviral and antimicrobial applications, and antioxidation, having the functions of inhibiting cAMP phosphodiesterase activities, toxicity of a wide variety of insecticides and antihypertensive activity, etc. [2,3,7,[9][10][11] .Recently, increasing interests have been put on the application of laccases (EC 1.10.3.2, p-diphenol: dioxygen oxidoreductase) as a new biocatalyst in organic synthesis because environmentally friendly oxidation has become a very important field in green chemistry [12,13] . Rhus laccase (RL) purified from the Chinese peculiar plant Rhus vernicifera, however, was often criticized due to its low activity [14 -17] . Though various methods were tried and efforts were made to improve its activity, no obvious efficacy could be observed. Can't the disadvantage be used of directly?In this work, various substrates catalyzed by Rhus laccases (RL), which were separated from the Chinese peculiar plant Rhus vernicifera, were investigated. Two fungal laccases from Pycnoporus coccineus (PCL) and Trametes spec (TL) were also discussed in order to make a comparison with RL in water miscible solvents.
