|
Wall Stress Relaxation
The plant cell wall is made up of hydrated polymetric material, allowing it to have viscoelastic properties. The primary cell wall of a plant consists of cellulose fibers, hemicellulose, and xyloglucans. This load bearing network is also surrounded by pectins and glycoproteins. Wall stress relaxation is an important factor in cell wall expansion. Wall stress (measured in force per unit area) is created in response to the plant cell's turgor pressure. Turgor pressure creates tension in the cell walls of plants, fungi, and bacteria, as it opposes the pressure of the cell's primary cell wall; this also allows for stretching of the cell wall. The stretching of the cell wall, or the reduction of stress, occurs as a result of cell expansion and rearrangement. Cell expansion is crucial for the reshaping and rearranging of plant cells. Expansion is the result of "creep", or selective wall loosening, which is driven by turgor pressure. During this "creep", cellulose microfibers move relative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cell Wall
A cell wall is a structural layer surrounding some types of cells, just outside the cell membrane. It can be tough, flexible, and sometimes rigid. It provides the cell with both structural support and protection, and also acts as a filtering mechanism. Cell walls are absent in many eukaryotes, including animals, but are present in some other ones like fungi, algae and plants, and in most prokaryotes (except mollicute bacteria). A major function is to act as pressure vessels, preventing over-expansion of the cell when water enters. The composition of cell walls varies between taxonomic group and species and may depend on cell type and developmental stage. The primary cell wall of land plants is composed of the polysaccharides cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin. Often, other polymers such as lignin, suberin or cutin are anchored to or embedded in plant cell walls. Algae possess cell walls made of glycoproteins and polysaccharides such as carrageenan and agar that are absent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viscoelastic
In materials science and continuum mechanics, viscoelasticity is the property of materials that exhibit both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing deformation. Viscous materials, like water, resist shear flow and strain linearly with time when a stress is applied. Elastic materials strain when stretched and immediately return to their original state once the stress is removed. Viscoelastic materials have elements of both of these properties and, as such, exhibit time-dependent strain. Whereas elasticity is usually the result of bond stretching along crystallographic planes in an ordered solid, viscosity is the result of the diffusion of atoms or molecules inside an amorphous material.Meyers and Chawla (1999): "Mechanical Behavior of Materials", 98-103. Background In the nineteenth century, physicists such as Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Kelvin researched and experimented with creep and recovery of glasses, metals, and rubbers. Viscoelasticity was further examined in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall of green plants, many forms of algae and the oomycetes. Some species of bacteria secrete it to form biofilms. Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer on Earth. The cellulose content of cotton fiber is 90%, that of wood is 40–50%, and that of dried hemp is approximately 57%. Cellulose is mainly used to produce paperboard and paper. Smaller quantities are converted into a wide variety of derivative products such as cellophane and rayon. Conversion of cellulose from energy crops into biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol is under development as a renewable fuel source. Cellulose for industrial use is mainly obtained from wood pulp and cotton. Some animals, particularly ruminants and termites, can digest cellulose with the help of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hemicellulose
A hemicellulose (also known as polyose) is one of a number of heteropolymer, heteropolymers (matrix polysaccharides), such as arabinoxylans, present along with cellulose in almost all embryophyte, terrestrial plant cell walls.Scheller HV, Ulvskov Hemicelluloses.// Annu Rev Plant Biol. 2010;61:263-89. doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-042809-112315. Cellulose is crystalline, strong, and resistant to hydrolysis. Hemicelluloses are branched, shorter in length than cellulose, and also show a propensity to crystallize. They can be hydrolyzed by dilute acid or Base (chemistry), base as well as a myriad of Cellulase, hemicellulase enzymes. Composition Diverse kinds of hemicelluloses are known. Important examples include xylan, glucuronoxylan, arabinoxylan, glucomannan, and xyloglucan. Hemicelluloses are polysaccharides often associated with cellulose, but with distinct compositions and structures. Whereas cellulose is derived exclusively from glucose, hemicelluloses are composed of diverse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xyloglucan
Xyloglucan is a hemicellulose that occurs in the primary cell wall of all vascular plants; however, all enzymes responsible for xyloglucan metabolism are found in Charophyceae algae.LEV Del Bem and M Vincentz (2010) Evolution of xyloglucan-related genes. ''BMC Evolutionary Biology'', 10:340, 1-17 In many dicotyledonous plants, it is the most abundant hemicellulose in the primary cell wall. Xyloglucan binds to the surface of cellulose microfibrils and may link them together. It is the substrate of xyloglucan endotransglycosylase, which cuts and ligates xyloglucans, as a means of integrating new xyloglucans into the cell wall. It is also thought to be the substrate of alpha-expansin, which promotes cell wall enlargement. Chemistry Xyloglucan has a backbone of β1→4-linked glucose residues, most of which are substituted with 1-6 linked xylose sidechains. The xylose residues are often capped with a galactose residue sometimes followed by a fucose residue. The specific structure of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pectin
Pectin ( grc, πηκτικός ': "congealed" and "curdled") is a heteropolysaccharide, a structural acid contained in the primary lamella, in the middle lamella, and in the cell walls of terrestrial plants. The principal, chemical component of pectin is galacturonic acid (a sugar acid derived from galactose) which was isolated and described by Henri Braconnot in 1825. Commercially produced pectin is a white-to-light-brown powder, produced from citrus fruits for use as an edible gelling agent, especially in jams and jellies, dessert fillings, medications, and sweets; and as a chemical stabiliser in fruit juices and milk drinks, and as a source of dietary fiber. Biology Pectin is composed of complex polysaccharides that are present in the primary cell walls of a plant, and are abundant in the green parts of terrestrial plants. Pectin is the principal component of the middle lamella, where it binds cells. Pectin is deposited by exocytosis into the cell wall via vesicles produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glycoprotein
Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known as glycosylation. Secreted extracellular proteins are often glycosylated. In proteins that have segments extending extracellularly, the extracellular segments are also often glycosylated. Glycoproteins are also often important integral membrane proteins, where they play a role in cell–cell interactions. It is important to distinguish endoplasmic reticulum-based glycosylation of the secretory system from reversible cytosolic-nuclear glycosylation. Glycoproteins of the cytosol and nucleus can be modified through the reversible addition of a single GlcNAc residue that is considered reciprocal to phosphorylation and the functions of these are likely to be an additional regulatory mechanism that controls phosphorylation-based signalling. In contrast, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turgor Pressure
Turgor pressure is the force within the cell that pushes the plasma membrane against the cell wall. It is also called ''hydrostatic pressure'', and is defined as the pressure in a fluid measured at a certain point within itself when at equilibrium. Generally, turgor pressure is caused by the osmotic flow of water and occurs in plants, fungi, and bacteria. The phenomenon is also observed in protists that have cell walls. This system is not seen in animal cells, as the absence of a cell wall would cause the cell to lyse when under too much pressure. The pressure exerted by the osmotic flow of water is called turgidity. It is caused by the osmotic flow of water through a selectively permeable membrane. Movement of water through a semipermeable membrane from a volume with a low solute concentration to one with a higher solute concentration is called osmotic flow. In plants, this entails the water moving from the low concentration solute outside the cell into the cell's vacuole. Mec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anisotropy
Anisotropy () is the property of a material which allows it to change or assume different properties in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. It can be defined as a difference, when measured along different axes, in a material's physical or mechanical properties (absorbance, refractive index, conductivity, tensile strength, etc.). An example of anisotropy is light coming through a polarizer. Another is wood, which is easier to split along its grain than across it. Fields of interest Computer graphics In the field of computer graphics, an anisotropic surface changes in appearance as it rotates about its geometric normal, as is the case with velvet. Anisotropic filtering (AF) is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces that are far away and steeply angled with respect to the point of view. Older techniques, such as bilinear and trilinear filtering, do not take into account the angle a surface is viewed from, which can result in aliasing or bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acid Growth
Acid growth refers to the ability of plant cells and plant cell walls to elongate or expand quickly at low (acidic) pH. The cell wall needs to be modified in order to maintain the turgor pressure. This modification is controlled by plant hormones like auxin. Auxin also controls the expression of some cell wall genes. This form of growth does not involve an increase in cell number. During acid growth, plant cells enlarge rapidly because the cell walls are made more extensible by expansin, a pH-dependent wall-loosening protein. Expansin loosens the network-like connections between cellulose microfibrils within the cell wall, which allows the cell volume to increase by turgor and osmosis. A typical sequence leading up to this would involve the introduction of a plant hormone (auxin, for example) that causes protons (H+ ions) to be pumped out of the cell into the cell wall. As a result, the cell wall solution becomes more acidic. It was suggested by different scientist that the epidermi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expansin
Expansins are a family of closely related nonenzymatic proteins found in the plant cell wall, with important roles in plant cell growth, fruit softening, abscission, emergence of root hairs, pollen tube invasion of the stigma and style, meristem function, and other developmental processes where cell wall loosening occurs. Expansins were originally discovered as mediators of acid growth, which refers to the widespread characteristic of growing plant cell walls to expand faster at low (acidic) pH than at neutral pH. Expansins are thus linked to auxin action. They are also linked to cell enlargement and cell wall changes induced by other plant hormones such as gibberellin, cytokinin, ethylene and brassinosteroids. A subset of the β-expansins are also the major group-1 allergens of grass pollens. Families So far, two large families of expansin genes have been discovered in plants, named alpha-expansins (given the gene symbol EXPA) and beta-expansins (EXPB). Both families of expansins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
