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Xylan decoration patterns and the plant secondary cell wall molecular architecture.


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Authors

Busse-Wicher, Marta 
Grantham, Nicholas J 
Lyczakowski, Jan J 
Nikolovski, Nino 

Abstract

The molecular architecture of plant secondary cell walls is still not resolved. There are several proposed structures for cellulose fibrils, the main component of plant cell walls and the conformation of other molecules is even less well known. Glucuronic acid (GlcA) substitution of xylan (GUX) enzymes, in CAZy family glycosyl transferase (GT)8, decorate the xylan backbone with various specific patterns of GlcA. It was recently discovered that dicot xylan has a domain with the side chain decorations distributed on every second unit of the backbone (xylose). If the xylan backbone folds in a similar way to glucan chains in cellulose (2-fold helix), this kind of arrangement may allow the undecorated side of the xylan chain to hydrogen bond with the hydrophilic surface of cellulose microfibrils. MD simulations suggest that such interactions are energetically stable. We discuss the possible role of this xylan decoration pattern in building of the plant cell wall.

Description

Keywords

cell wall, cellulose, decoration pattern, docking, molecular architecture, xylan, Carbohydrate Metabolism, Cell Wall, Cellulose, Phylogeny, Plants, Xylans

Journal Title

Biochem Soc Trans

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0300-5127
1470-8752

Volume Title

44

Publisher

Portland Press Ltd.
Sponsorship
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/G016240/1)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/K005537/1)
We thank Nadine Anders for helpful comments on the manuscript. The work was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Programme Grant : The Centre for Natural Material Innovation and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant numbers [BB/K005537/1] and [BB/G016240/1].