Abstract
The orientation of the triclinic phase of cellulose in the cell wall of Valonia ventricosa J. Agardh was investigated by X-ray- and electron-diffraction analysis. In addition to the well-documented uniplanar-axial organization of the cell wall which requires that the a * axis should be always perpendicular to the wall surface, the direction of this axis was also found to be pointing outward from the plasma membrane side of the wall. This unidirectionality was persistent throughout the various layers that constitute the cell wall and also for the three microfibrillar orientations that occur in Valonia cell walls. The unidirectionality of the a * axis indicates, in particular, that the Valonia cellulose microfibrils are not twisted along their axis. These observations are consistent with a cellulose biosynthetic scheme where a close association exists between terminal-complex orientations and those of the cellulose microfibrils. In this context, the unidirectionality of the a * axis of cellulose seems to be related to the restricted mobility of the terminal complexes which are able to slide in the plasma membrane but not to rotate along their long axis.
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Abbreviations
- TC:
-
terminal complex
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This work was initiated during a visit of J.F.R at Grenoble in the framework of a France-Québec exchange program. J.S. was recipient of a CNRS fellowship. The diagram in Fig. 8 was kindly drawn for us by Miss Yukie Saito from the Department of Forest Products, the University of Tokyo.
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Sugiyama, J., Chanzy, H. & Revol, J.F. On the polarity of cellulose in the cell wall of Valonia . Planta 193, 260–265 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00192539
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00192539