Skip Navigation


Molecular Plant Advance Access originally published online on August 5, 2009
Molecular Plant 2009 2(5):840-850; doi:10.1093/mp/ssp056
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
2/5/840    most recent
ssp056v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sandhu, A. P. S.
Right arrow Articles by Dhugga, K. S.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by the Molecular Plant Shanghai Editorial Office in association with Oxford University Press on behalf of CSPP and IPPE, SIBS, CAS.

Plant Cell Wall Matrix Polysaccharide Biosynthesis

Ajay Pal S. Sandhua, Gursharn S. Randhawab and Kanwarpal S. Dhuggaa,1

a Crop Genetics Research and Development, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., A DuPont Company, 7300 NW 62nd Avenue, Johnston, IA 50131, USA
b Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India

1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail kanwarpal.dhugga{at}pioneer.com, fax +1-515-334-4729, tel. +1-515-270-3951.

The wall of an expanding plant cell consists primarily of cellulose microfibrils embedded in a matrix of hemicellulosic and pectic polysaccharides along with small amounts of structural and enzymatic proteins. Matrix polysaccharides are synthesized in the Golgi and exported to the cell wall by exocytosis, where they intercalate among cellulose microfibrils, which are made at the plasma membrane and directly deposited into the cell wall. Involvement of Golgi glucan synthesis in auxin-induced cell expansion has long been recognized; however, only recently have the genes corresponding to glucan synthases been identified. Biochemical purification was unsuccessful because of the labile nature and very low abundance of these enzymes. Mutational genetics also proved fruitless. Expression of candidate genes identified through gene expression profiling or comparative genomics in heterologous systems followed by functional characterization has been relatively successful. Several genes from the cellulose synthase-like (Csl) family have been found to be involved in the synthesis of various hemicellulosic glycans. The usefulness of this approach, however, is limited to those enzymes that probably do not form complexes consisting of unrelated proteins. Nonconventional approaches will continue to incrementally unravel the mechanisms of Golgi polysaccharide biosynthesis.

Key Words: Biofuels • cell wall • Csl • Golgi • hemicellulose • membrane biochemistry


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.