In all land plants, cellulose is synthesized from hexameric plasma membrane complexes. Indirect evidence suggests that in vascular plants the complexes involved in primary wall synthesis contain three distinct cellulose synthase catalytic subunits (CESAs). In this study, we show that CESA3 and CESA6 fused to GFP are expressed in the same cells and at the same time in the hypocotyl of etiolated ...

The development of cellulose as an organizing structure in the plant cell wall was a key event in both the initial colonization and the subsequent domination of the terrestrial ecosystem by vascular plants. A wealth of experimental data has demonstrated the complicated genetic interactions required to form the large synthetic complex that synthesizes cellulose. However, these results are lackin...

Cell-free preparations of the bacterium Acetobacter xylinum were first reported to synthesize cellulose from UDP-Glc over 40 years ago (Glaser, 1958). Despite the elucidation of the primary sequence of the cellulose synthase from this organism in 1990 (Wong et al., 1990), a consistent mechanism to account for the biosynthesis of this and related polysaccharides has remained elusive. Opposing vi...

The cover image shows a possible scenario in which the active sites of cellulose synthase or chitin can interchangeably catalyze reactions involving and chitin, irrespective their protein shell. This discovery provides foundation for future experimental validations on substrate specificities bacterial synthases synthases, paving way manipulating interactions with other organisms designing tailo...

Two transgenic potato lines, csr2-1 and csr4-8 that contained two different antisense cellulose synthase (CesA) genes, csr2 and csr4, respectively were crossed. The aim, amongst others, was to investigate the possibility of generating double transformants to validate a hypothetical presence of the proteins of the two CesA genes in the same cellulose synthase enzyme complex. SYBR-Green quantitat...