Monitoring Polysaccharide Dynamics in the Plant Cell Wall

The review illustrates how newly developed technologies have been instrumental in the understanding of the deposition and remodeling of plant cell wall polysaccharides, along with their impact on plant developments.

The significant advances are :
• The advancement of spectroscopic and microscopic techniques, along with the discovery of multiple diverse proteinaceous probes, has allowed the monitoring of
polysaccharide dynamics in muro.
• “Click chemistry” enables the imaging of matrix polysaccharide deposition at an unprecedented resolution and is compatible with fluorescent probes directed against other wall components.
• Synthetic glycan arrays can help to identify the target epitopes of existing cell wall probes.
• Solid-state NMR provides molecular insights into the spatial localization of polysaccharides in intact plant tissues.
• Fine-tuning of polysaccharide structures in a spatiotemporal manner is essential to control the architecture of plant cell walls and can lead to distinct developmental fates.

Despite these advances, the authors conclude that the spatiotemporal organization and regulation of wall polymer synthesis and degradation, along with the assembly of polymer networks, and the dynamics of wall assemblies during cell growth and differentiation remain a challenge.