Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer on earth, is a versatile, energy rich material found in the cell walls of plants, bacteria, algae, and tunicates. It is well established that cellulose is crystalline, although the orientational order of cellulose crystallites normal to the plane of the cell wall has not been characterized. A preferred orientational alignment of cellulose crystals could be an important determinant of the mechanical properties of the cell wall and of cellulose-cellulose and cellulose-matrix interactions. Here, the crystalline structures of cellulose in primary cell walls of onion (Allium cepa), the model eudicot Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), and moss (Physcomitrella patens) were examined through grazing incidence wide angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS). We find that GIWAXS can decouple diffraction from cellulose and epicuticular wax crystals in cell walls. Pole figures constructed from a combination of GIWAXS and X-ray rocking scans reveal that cellulose crystals have a preferred crystallographic orientation with the (200) and (110)/([Formula: see text]) planes preferentially stacked parallel to the cell wall. This orientational ordering of cellulose crystals, termed texturing in materials science, represents a previously unreported measure of cellulose organization and contradicts the predominant hypothesis of twisting of microfibrils in plant primary cell walls.
Source: Nature Communications
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $5,380
Awards: TAS::89 0227::TAS RECOVERY; RECOVERY ACT - CENTER FOR LIGNOCELLULOSE STRUCTURE AND FORMATION -- EFRC; PI - DANIEL COSGROVE, G1229526393, G1286236842, G1286251239, G1414775356, G1445641779, G1451874870, G1816284028, G1948681064, G2371548206, G2618837358, G262532246, G303061748, G30714459, G3083819904, TAS::89 0227::TAS RECOVERY; RECOVERY ACT - CENTER FOR LIGNOCELLULOSE STRUCTURE AND FORMATION -- EFRC; PI - DANIEL COSGROVE, G365575497, G419881185, G4235786860, G42916606, G4501827968, G4908923434, G495301720, G498139845, G5025091364, G5570207115, G5849692847, G604936351, G628751139, G650090426, G6550344761, G6652958823, G7083997402, G7283024673, G7313278570, G805243471, G8382000481, G911061179, G969889393
OpenAlex ID: W3087077445