Lignocellulosic plant material is potentially a sustainable source of fermentable sugars for bioethanol production. However, a barrier to this is the high resistance or recalcitrance of plant cell walls to be hydrolyzed. Therefore a detailed knowledge of the structural features of plant cell walls that contribute to recalcitrance is important for improving the efficiency of bioethanol production. In this work we have used a technique known as Comprehensive Microarray Polymer Profiling (CoMPP) to analyze wheat straw before and after being subjected to hydrothermal pre-treatments at four different temperatures. The CoMPP technique combines the specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the high-throughput capacity of microarrays. Changes in the relative abundance of cell wall polysaccharides could be tracked during processing, and a reduction in xylan, arabinoxylans, xyloglucan, and mixed-linked glucan epitopes was detected at the two highest temperatures of pre-treatment used. This work demonstrates the potential of CoMPP as a complementally technique to conventional methods for analyzing biomass composition. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2010; 105: 509-514. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.