Mild alkali-pretreatment effectively extracts guaiacyl-rich lignin for high lignocellulose digestibility coupled with largely diminishing yeast fermentation inhibitors in Miscanthus

•G-rich Miscanthus sample has high biomass digestibility under alkali pretreatments.•S- and H-rich samples show relatively low biomass saccharification.•G-rich sample displays effective extraction of lignin–hemicelluloses complex.•G-rich sample is in favor of diminishing lignin inhibitors to yeast fermentation.•Minor monolignin modification for cost-effective biofuel production in Miscanthus. In this study, various alkali-pretreated lignocellulose enzymatic hydrolyses were evaluated by using three standard pairs of Miscanthus accessions that showed three distinct monolignol (G, S, H) compositions. Mfl26 samples with elevated G-levels exhibited significantly increased hexose yields of up to 1.61-fold compared to paired samples derived from enzymatic hydrolysis, whereas Msa29 samples with high H-levels displayed increased hexose yields of only up to 1.32-fold. In contrast, Mfl30 samples with elevated S-levels showed reduced hexose yields compared to the paired sample of 0.89–0.98 folds at p