Polymer mobility in cell walls of cucumber hypocotyls.

Cell walls were prepared from the growing region of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) hypocotyls and examined by solid-state 13C NMR spectroscopy, in both enzymically active and inactivated states. The rigidity of individual polymer segments within the hydrated cell walls was assessed from the proton magnetic relaxation parameter, T2, and from the kinetics of cross-polarisation from 1H to 13C. The microfibrils, including most of the xyloglucan in the cell wall, as well as cellulose, behaved as very rigid solids. A minor xyloglucan fraction, which may correspond to cross-links between microfibrils, shared a lower level of rigidity with some of the pectic galacturonan. Other pectins, including most of the galactan side-chain residues of rhamnogalacturonan I, were much more mobile and behaved in a manner intermediate between the solid and liquid states. The only difference observed between the enzymically active and inactive cell walls, was the loss of a highly mobile, methyl-esterified galacturonan fraction, as the result of pectinesterase activity.

Estimation of Polymer Rigidity in Cell Walls of Growing and Nongrowing Celery Collenchyma by Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Vivo.

When the growth of a plant cell ceases, its walls become more rigid and lose the capacity to extend. Nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation methods were used to determine the molecular mobility of cell wall polymers in growing and nongrowing live celery (Apium graveolens L.) collenchyma. To our knowledge, this is the first time this approach has been used in vivo. Decreased polymer mobility in nongrowing cell walls was detected through the 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum by decreases in the proton spin-spin relaxation time constant and in the intensity of a sub-spectrum corresponding to highly mobile pectins, which was obtained by a spectral editing technique based on cross-polarization rates. Flexible, highly methyl-esterified pectins decreased in relative quantity when growth ceased. A parallel increase in the net longitudinal orientation of cellulose microfibrils was detected in isolated cell walls by polarized Fourier-transformed infrared spectrometry.