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Plants cannot survive without cellulose, the primary constituent of their cell walls. Although some of the subunits composing the rosette-shaped cellulose synthase--the enzyme complex that synthesizes cellulose--have been identified, the biochemical steps in the initiation, elongation, and termination of the glucan chain are still something of a mystery. In their Perspective, Read and Bacic discuss new work (Peng et al.) that reveals the identity of the lipid primer that initiates synthesis of the glucan chain.
S. M. Read is in the School of Resource Management and Forest Science Centre, University of Melbourne, Creswick, Victoria 3363, Australia. A. Bacic is at the Plant Cell Biology Research Centre, School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. E-mail: abacic{at}unimelb.edu.au
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REPORTS
Liangcai Peng, Yasushi Kawagoe, Pat Hogan, and Deborah Delmer (4 January 2002) Science295 (5552), 147.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1064281] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supplemental Data »
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