Elsevier

Phytochemistry

Volume 57, Issue 6, July 2001, Pages 929-967
Phytochemistry

Review
Pectins: structure, biosynthesis, and oligogalacturonide-related signaling

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9422(01)00113-3Get rights and content

Abstract

Pectin is a family of complex polysaccharides present in all plant primary cell walls. The complicated structure of the pectic polysaccharides, and the retention by plants of the large number of genes required to synthesize pectin, suggests that pectins have multiple functions in plant growth and development. In this review we summarize the current level of understanding of pectin primary and tertiary structure, and describe new methods that may be useful to study localized pectin structure in the plant cell wall. We also discuss progress in our understanding of how pectin is biosynthesized and review the biological activities and possible modes of action of pectic oligosaccharides referred to as oligogalacturonides. We present our view of critical questions regarding pectin structure, biosynthesis, and function that need to be addressed in the coming decade. As the plant community works towards understanding the functions of the tens of thousands of genes expressed by plants, a large number of those genes are likely to be involved in the synthesis, turnover, biological activity, and restructuring of pectin. A combination of genetic, molecular, biochemical and chemical approaches will be necessary to fully understand the function and biosynthesis of pectin.

Our current level of understanding of the structure, biosynthesis and function of the plant cell wall polysaccharide pectin is reviewed.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jason Sterling for critical reading of the manuscript and our colleagues at the CCRC for their helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by NSF grant No. INT-9722509, NRI competitive USDA award 98-35304-6772, NIH grant 5R01GM39583, DOE grant DE-FG02-96ER20220 and DOE-funded center grant DE-FG05-93-ER20097.

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