From traditional retting to precision bioprocessing: microbial ecology, enzymatic selectivity, and systems biology of jute retting.

Jute is one of the world's most important lignocellulosic fibre crops, yet its commercial value remains highly dependent on retting, a biologically mediated fibre extraction process still largely governed by empirical practices and variable environmental conditions. Recent advances in microbial ecology, enzymology, molecular biology, and bioprocess engineering have transformed retting from a traditional post-harvest operation into a controllable lignocellulosic bioconversion process. This review synthesizes current understanding of the structural organization of jute bast fibres, selective degradation of plant cell-wall polymers, microbial succession, extracellular enzyme networks, and physicochemical factors regulating fibre liberation. It highlights the coordinated interactions among cell-wall architecture, microbial communities, enzyme specificity, and environmental conditions that collectively determine retting efficiency and fibre quality. Emerging precision retting strategies, including defined microbial consortia, enzyme-assisted retting, ribbon retting, controlled processing systems, and water-efficient technologies, are critically evaluated for their potential to improve process reproducibility, fibre quality, and environmental sustainability. The review also examines metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, metabolomics, systems biology, and artificial intelligence as enabling technologies for microbiome-guided process monitoring, predictive modelling, and digital decision support. Furthermore, this review discusses the integration of precision retting within circular bioeconomy frameworks through resource recovery, pollution mitigation, climate-resilient processing, and lignocellulosic biorefineries. Key knowledge gaps, including limited understanding of microbial interactions, lack of standardized microbial consortia, insufficient process-monitoring tools, fragmented multi-omics datasets, and challenges in industrial scale-up, are identified. Overall, this review presents a systems-level framework for advancing jute retting toward standardized, predictive, and environmentally sustainable precision bioprocessing.