The hard wood-colonizing ascomycete Xylaria polymorpha, that is seemingly lacking peroxidases, produces laccase as sole ligninolytic oxidoreductase. The fungus secreted the enzyme preferably during the growth in complex media based on tomato juice. Addition of 2,5-xylidine considerably stimulated laccase production (up to 14,000 U l(-1)). The enzyme was purified to homogeneity by anion exchange and size exclusion chromatography and characterized by biochemical and molecular methods. Xylaria laccase has a molecular mass of 67 kDal a pI of 3.1 and an absorption maximum at 605 nm that is characteristic for blue copper proteins. It oxidized all typical laccase substrates including ABTS, 2,6-dimethoxyphenol, guaiacol as well as syringaldazine (catalytic efficiencies 3 x 10(3) to 7 x 10(4) M-1 s(-1)). The deduced amino acid sequence of one amplified laccase gene sequence between the copper binding regions I and 3 showed a high level of identity to some other laccases from ascomycetes. Furthermore, the sequence of an internal peptide fragment of the purified laccase was identical with an amino acid sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence of the laccase gene. Xylaria laccase was found to oxidize a non-phenolic beta-O-4 lignin model compound in presence of 1-hydroxybenzotriazole into the corresponding keto-form. The results of this study show that - in addition to ligninolytic basidiomycetes - also wood-dwelling ascomycetes can produce high titers of laccase that may be involved in the oxidation of lignin. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.