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Articles

The Structure of Plant Cell Walls

VII. Barley Aleurone Cells ¹

Lincoln Taiz⁶

Russell L. Jones^c

^a Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80302, ⁶ Thimann Laboratories, Division of Natural Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95060, Department of Botany, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720

The walls of barley (Hordeum vulgare var. Himalaya) aleurone cells are composed of two major polysaccharides, arabinoxylan (85%) and cellulose (8%). The cell wall preparations contain 6% protein, but this protein does not contain detectable amounts of hydroxyproline. The arabinoxylan has a linear 1,4-xylan backbone; 33% of the xylosyl residues are substituted at the 2 and/or 3 position with single arabinofuranosyl residues. The results of in vitro cellulose binding experiments support the hypothesis that noncovalent bonds between the arabinoxylan chains and cellulose fibers play a part in maintaining wall structure. It is suggested that bonding between the arabinoxylan chains themselves is also utilized in forming the walls.

¹ This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant GB-36569 and Atomic Energy Commission Grant AT(11-1)-1426.