The proteins of the primary cell walls of suspension cultured cells of five plant species, Arabidopsis, carrot, French bean, tomato, and tobacco, have been compared. The approach that has been adopted is differential extraction followed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), rather than two-dimensional gel analysis, to facilitate protein sequencing. Whole cells were washed sequentially with the following aqueous solutions, CaCl 2 , CDTA (cyclohexane diaminotetraacetic acid, DTT (dithiothreitol), NaCl, and borate. SDS-PAGE analysis showed consistent differences between species. From the 233 proteins that were selected for sequencing, 63% gave N-terminal data. This analysis shows that (i) patterns of proteins revealed by SDS-PAGE are strikingly different for all five species, (ii) a large number of these proteins cannot be identified by data base searches indicating that a significant proportion of wall proteins have not been previously described, (iii) the major proteins that can be identified belong to very different classes of proteins, (iv) the majority of proteins found in the extracellular growth media are absent from their respective cell wall extracts, and (v) the results of the extraction process are indicative of higher order structure. It appears that aspects of speciation reside in the complement of extracellular wall proteins. The data represent a protein resource for cell wall studies complementary to EST (expressed sequence tag) and DNA sequencing strategies.The plant cell wall is a dynamic system generally considered to be composed of more than 90% carbohydrate polymers. Proteins, phenolics and possibly lipids make up the remainder of the wall (1-3). To date, most research interest has been in the carbohydrate components because of considerations of their structural role and commercial interest. This has led to a number of models for the integration, interpolymeric association, and assembly of the wall (3, 4). By comparison, our knowledge of the complexity of protein in the plant cell wall is in a less advanced state. Much of the understanding of the range of structural wall proteins has come from cDNA and genomic cloning exercises and has led to the identification of glycine-, cysteine-, proline-, and hydroxyproline-rich subsets of wall proteins. In addition, many extracellular enzymes have been identified that are required for the restructuring and modification of this dynamic extracellular matrix which underpin its role in defense, detoxification, signaling, cell-cell recognition, cell expansion, cell adhesion, cell separation, translocation, differentiation, and morphogenesis (2, 5, 6). However, there is a lack of direct studies on the proteins themselves and the true range of extracellular proteins and their species differences remains to be elucidated. The present work describes the systematic extraction and sequencing of the major primary wall proteins from five species representing four families of plants.Since whole plant tissue is complicated by the presence of different tissue...

A cell suspension culture of a tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. Petit Havana) cell line derived from a cultivar transformed with the Tcyt gene from Agrobacterium, which leads to high endogenous levels of cytokinin, has been established. This cell line shows increased cell aggregation, elongated cells and a 5-fold increase in wall thickness. If allowed to carry on growing it can form a single mass without shedding cells into the medium. When analysed at an earlier growth stage, these cultures were found to produce improved levels of vascular nodule formation than in other systems that employ exogenous cytokinin. This differentiation was optimised with respect to sucrose and auxin signals in order to induce maximum production of cells with thickened walls and a morphology characteristic of fibre cells and tracheids, in addition to cells that remain meristematic. In order to establish the validity of this system for studying secondary wall formation, the walls and associated biosynthetic changes were analysed in these cells by chemical analysis of the walls, changes in activities of enzymes of xylan and monolignol synthesis, and expression of mRNAs coding for enzymes of lignin biosynthesis. The wall composition of the transformed cells was compared with that determined for primary walls from a typical untransformed tobacco cell line. Recovery of wall material was 50% greater in the transformed culture. In this material a major difference was found in the pectin fraction where there was a distinct difference in size distribution together with a lower level of methylation for the transformed line, which may be related to increased adhesiveness. There were increased amounts of xylan, although the ratio of xyloglucan to xylan content was not substantially different due to the mixture of cell types. There was also an increase in cellulose and phenolic components. Increased activity of enzymes involved in the synthesis of xylan as a marker for the secondary wall occurred around the time of tracheid differentiation and coincided with a broad peak of cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase activity. The expression of mRNAs coding for enzymes of the general phenylpropanoid pathway, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, cinnamate 4-hydroxylase, catechol O-methyl transferase was relatively constitutive in the cultures while transcripts of ferulate 5-hydroxylase, cinnamoyl CoA-reductase, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase and lignin peroxidase were induced. The walls of the transformed cells also showed considerable differences in the subset of extractable proteins from that found in primary walls of tobacco when these were subjected to proteomic analysis. Many of these proteins appear to be novel and not present in primary walls. However an Mr-32,000 chitinase, an Mr-34,000 peroxidase, an Mr-65,000 polyphenoloxidase/laccase and possibly an Mr-68,000 xylanase could be identified as well as structural proteins.