Conversion of oxygen-containing compounds derived from lignin arises wide interest due to fossil-derived resources consumption and growing environmental concerns. In this work, hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of dibenzofuran (DBF) was studied over high-surface-area MgO supported Pt, Pd and Ru catalysts at 370 degrees C and 1.0 MPa. It was determined that the active metals not only affect the catalytic activity, but also change the reaction pathway of HDO of DBF. The intrinsic activity (TOF) of MgO supported catalysts follows the trend: Pt/MgO (0.36 s(-1)) > Ru/MgO (0.29 s(-1)) > Pd/MgO (0.09 s(-1)), companied by the increasing activate barrier. Pt has a high activity in the hydrogenation of DBF, and exhibits a perfect deoxygenation activity followed by hydrogenation (HYD) pathway. Ru shows better cleavage ability of C-aromatic-O bond and the removal of oxygen from DBF mainly occurs via direct deoxygenation (DDO) pathway. The increased Pt loadings largely promote the conversion of DBF by enhancing both HYD and DDO pathways. In addition, more direct cleavage of C-aromatic-O bond occurs at higher temperature and the production of aromatics by the DDO pathway prefers the relatively low reaction pressure. Based on the pseudo-first-order kinetics, the analysis of the fitted reaction rate constant shows that the DDO selectivity follows the order: Ru/MgO > Pd/MgO > Pt/MgO, which depends on the capacity of active metals to the cleavage of C-aromatic-O bond and the hydrogenation of aromatic ring.