Journal
ANNALS OF BOTANY
Volume 114, Issue 6, Pages 1043-1048Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcu214
Keywords
Arabidopsis thaliana; arabinogalactan protein; callose; cellulose synthase; cell wall; Ceratopteris richardii; C-Fern; extracellular matrix; Fucales; glucuronoarabinoxylan; glycoprotein; haustoria; hyaline bodies; Miscanthus; mixed-linkage glucan; Orobanchaceae; pectin; pectin methylesterase; Penium margaritaceum; pollen; ripening; root; rhamnogalacturonan I; rhamnogalacturonan II; seed coat; xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolase; Zea mays
Categories
Funding
- Div Of Biological Infrastructure
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1337280] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Background Although plants and many algae (e. g. the Phaeophyceae, brown, and Rhodophyceae, red) are only very distantly related they are united in their possession of carbohydrate-rich cell walls, which are of integral importance being involved in many physiological processes. Furthermore, wall components have applications within food, fuel, pharmaceuticals, fibres (e. g. for textiles and paper) and building materials and have long been an active topic of research. As shown in the 27 papers in this Special Issue, as the major deposit of photosynthetically fixed carbon, and therefore energy investment, cell walls are of undisputed importance to the organisms that possess them, the photosynthetic eukaryotes (plants and algae). The complexities of cell wall components along with their interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment are becoming increasingly revealed. Scope The importance of plant and algal cell walls and their individual components to the function and survival of the organism, and for a number of industrial applications, are illustrated by the breadth of topics covered in this issue, which includes papers concentrating on various plants and algae, developmental stages, organs, cell wall components, and techniques. Although we acknowledge that there are many alternative ways in which the papers could be categorized (and many would fit within several topics), we have organized them as follows: (1) cell wall biosynthesis and remodelling, (2) cell wall diversity, and (3) application of new technologies to cell walls. Finally, we will consider future directions within plant cell wall research. Expansion of the industrial uses of cell walls and potentially novel uses of cell wall components are both avenues likely to direct future research activities. Fundamentally, it is the continued progression from characterization (structure, metabolism, properties and localization) of individual cell wall components through to defining their roles in almost every aspect of plant and algal physiology that will present many of the major challenges in future cell wall research.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available