Important new players in secondary wall synthesis.
Secondary walls in wood are the most abundant biomass produced by plants. Understanding how plants make wood is not only of interest in basic plant biology but also has important implications for tree biotechnology. Three recent papers report exciting findings regarding a group of novel glycosyltransferases (GTs) involved in secondary wall synthesis. Because little is known about genes involved in the synthesis of wood polysaccharides other than cellulose, the identification of these GTs is a breakthrough in the molecular dissection of wood formation.
Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. zhye@plantbio.uga.edu
Zheng-Hua
ZH
Ye
William S
WS
York
Alan G
AG
Darvill
D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000166:cytology / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000378:metabolism*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D016695:Glycosyltransferases / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D032107:Populus / Q000166:cytology / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
D016695:Glycosyltransferases