Fungal treatment with Irpex lacteus was used to enhance the delignification and xylan loss during mild alkaline pretreatment and subsequent enzymatic conversion in this research. The 15-day bio-treatment can modify the lignin structure and increase losses of lignin (from 75.67% to 80.00%) and xylan (from 40.68% to 51.37%) during alkaline pretreatment, making the enzymatic conversion more efficient. The high digestibility of glucan can be obtained after the bio-treatment and alkaline pretreatment at near room-temperature (30 degrees C), and the maximum digestibility increased 14% in comparison with that after the sole alkaline pretreatment. The bio-treatment enhanced delignification and glucan digestibility more significantly when the alkaline pretreatment was performed at lower severity. Additionally, Nuclei Growth model with a time-dependent rate constant can describe well the delignification and xylan loss. Results indicated that the bio-treatment increased the rate constant of initial reaction, but accelerated the decline of rate constant during alkaline pretreatment. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.