CELLULOSE SYNTHESIS

CELLULOSE
Cellulose is an aggregation of
unbranched polymer chains made of -
(14)-linked glucose residues that makes
up a large portion of primary and
secondary cell walls.
cellulose microfibrils are produced
worldwide serves as a critical source of
renewable biofuels and other biological-
based products, such as lumber, fuel,
fodder, paper and cotton
 Cellulose microfibres are tetherd by other
cell wall polysaccharides such as
hemicellulose , pectin and lignn.In higher
plants, cellulose is synthesized by plasma
membrane localized rosette cellulose
synthesis complexes.
Every cell in higher plant is encased in an
extracellular matrix , the plant cell wall.
Based on structural and funtional differnces ,
plant cell walls can be roughly characterized
into three types.
 1) The middle lamella is formed during cell
division as a first layer. The cell wall is
microfibril-based.
2) The primary cell wall (Pcw) , formed after
the middle lamella.
3) The secondary cell wall (Scw) is formed
after cell enlargement completion. The
secondary wall is often layered to S1, S2, and
S3 (outer, middle, and inner layers, resp.) S2
is the thickest layer with steep helices of
microfibrils
Fig 1. Cell wall layers
 All the cell wall layers consist of
microfibrillar and matrix phases. The
microfibrils have a crystalline core and
less crystalline outer side but the matrix
is noncrystalline phase that contains
pectins and hemicelluloses, lignin, and
other polymers
CELLULOSE SYTHESIS
In 1996, the first higher plant cellulose
synthase gene was cloned from cotton.
Because of the biological and economic
importance of cellulose, attempts ave
been made to purify in the intact complex
form from plants and achieve in vitro
cellulose biosynthesis
 The first step in the pathway of cellulose
synthesis is the production of UDP-
glucose by the enzyme UDP-glucose
pyrophosphorylase (UGPase).
Cellulose fibrils are made by a complex of
cellulose synthase enzymes.
 Plant cellulose synthases belong to the family
of glycosyltransferases, which are proteins
involved in the biosynthesis and hydrolysis of the
bulk of earth's biomass.
Cellulose is synthesized by large cellulose
synthase complexes (CSCs), which consist of
synthase protein isoforms (CesA) that are
arranged into a unique hexagonal structure
known as a particle rosette.
These rosettes, formerly known as granules, were
first discovered in 1972 by electron microscopy in
green algae species Cladophora and Chaetomorpha.
 Cellulose biosynthesis is the process during
which separate homogeneous -(14)-
glucan chains, ranging from 2,000 to 25,000
glucose residues in length, are synthesized
and then immediately hydrogen bond with
one another to form rigid crystalline arrays,
or microfibrils.
Microfibrils in the primary cell wall are
approximately 36 chains long while those of
the secondary cell wall are much larger,
containing up to 1200 -(14)-glucan
chains.
Fig 2. Cellulose synthesis
 Since cellulose is made in all cell walls, CesA
proteins are present in all tissues and cell
types of plants.
Nonetheless, there are different types of
CesA, some tissue types may have varying
concentrations of one over another.
For example, the AtCesA1 (RSW1) protein
is involved in the biosynthesis of primary cell
walls throughout the whole plant while the
AtCesA7 (IRX3) protein is only expressed in
the stem for secondary cell wall
production.[16]
ENVIRONMENTAL INFULENCES
Cellulose synthesis activity is affected by
many environmental stimuli, such as
hormones, light, mechanical stimuli,
nutrition, and interactions with
the cytoskeleton.
Interactions with these factors may
influence cellulose deposition in that it
affects the amount of substrate produced
and the concentration and/or activity of
CSCs in the plasma membrane
CONCLUSION
Although numerous studies and progress
have been made towards understanding
the mechanism of cellulose biosynthesis in
higher plants, the biochemical
characterization of the plant CSC remains
elusive.
Innovations are needed in the areas of cell
biology, biochemistry, biophysics ,
biochemical engineering and computational
modeling for better understanding of
cellulose synthesis.
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