Abstract
THE cell walls of higher plants were long regarded as essentially inert structures which functioned mainly as mechanical barriers to the expansion of protoplasts under turgor pressure and as skeletal supports in tissues. It is now known, however, that they contain a number of hydrolytic enzymes at least one of which is a hydroxyproline-rich protein1. These enzymes are often of types associated with the dynamic recycling functions of intracellular lysosomes2–4. They have usually been detected by the activity of cell wall preparations after comminution of tissues and removal of contaminating cytoplasm by washing1,2,5 or by the activity of intact or excised roots3,6. We now report on the release of wall bound enzymes from living cells by a pectic enzyme.
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STEPHENS, G., WOOD, R. Release of enzymes from cell walls by an endopectate-trans-eliminase. Nature 251, 358 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/251358a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/251358a0
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