Sugar composition of the pectic polysaccharides of charophytes, the closest algal relatives of land-plants: presence of 3-O-methyl-D-galactose residues.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

During evolution, plants have acquired and/or lost diverse sugar residues as cell-wall constituents. Of particular interest are primordial cell-wall features that existed, and in some cases abruptly changed, during the momentous step whereby land-plants arose from charophytic algal ancestors.

Methods

Polysaccharides were extracted from four charophyte orders [Chlorokybales (Chlorokybus atmophyticus), Klebsormidiales (Klebsormidium fluitans, K. subtile), Charales (Chara vulgaris, Nitella flexilis), Coleochaetales (Coleochaete scutata)] and an early-diverging land-plant (Anthoceros agrestis). 'Pectins' and 'hemicelluloses', operationally defined as extractable in oxalate (100 °C) and 6 m NaOH (37 °C), respectively, were acid- or Driselase-hydrolysed, and th

SUBMITTER: O'Rourke C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4512192 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature