Cell wall composition determines handedness reversal in helicoidal cellulose architectures of Pollia condensata fruits.

ABSTRACT: Chiral asymmetry is important in a wide variety of disciplines and occurs across length scales. While several natural chiral biomolecules exist only with single handedness, they can produce complex hierarchical structures with opposite chiralities. Understanding how the handedness is transferred from molecular to the macroscopic scales is far from trivial. An intriguing example is the transfer of the handedness of helicoidal organizations of cellulose microfibrils in plant cell walls. These cellulose helicoids produce structural colors if their dimension is comparable to the wavelength of visible light. All previously reported examples of a helicoidal structure in plants are left-handed except, remarkably, in the Pollia condensata fruit; both left- and right-handed helicoidal cell walls ar

SUBMITTER: Chang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8713805 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature