Fluorescent Probes for Exploring Plant Cell Wall Deconstruction: A Review

Abstract

Plant biomass is a potential resource of chemicals, new materials and biofuels that could reduce our dependency on fossil carbon, thus decreasing the greenhouse effect. However, due to its chemical and structural complexity, plant biomass is recalcitrant to green biological transformation by enzymes, preventing the establishment of integrated bio-refineries. In order to gain more knowledge in the architecture of plant cell wall to facilitate their deconstruction, many fluorescent probes bearing various fluorophores have been devised and used successfully to reveal the changes in structural motifs during plant biomass deconstruction, and the molecular interactions between enzymes and plant cell wall polymers. Fluorescent probes are thus relevant tools to explore plant cell wall deconstruction.

Quantification of morphochemical changes during in situ enzymatic hydrolysis of individual biomass particles based on autofluorescence imaging

“…Such techniques can provide morphological information with very high resolution on individual biomass particles. Optical microscopy techniques, which are less invasive, have been used to study cellulose activity as well as the effect of pretreatment . Since biomass particles can be observed in their native environment with minimal sample preparation, the effect of enzymes can be studied locally on individual particles without the need of indirect quantification procedures.…”

Brassinosteroid-BODIPY conjugates: Design, synthesis, and properties

“…Apart from suitable fluorescence properties, the labelling fluorophore should not have considerable impact on the polarity, charge distribution, size and the stereochemistry of the conjugate. The literature analysis demonstrated that BODIPY (4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-sindacene) based dyes that have emerged in the last two decades [13] have a number of advantages over other fluorophores, such as high extinction coefficient and fluorescence quantum yield, narrow emission bandwidth, relatively long excited-state lifetimes, and small dependence of fluorescence properties on pH and polarity [14,15]. In studies of steroids, just to mention a few examples, the corresponding conjugates were employed as suitable tools for visualizing intracellular localization and tracking of cholesterol [16,17], dehydroepiandrosterone [18], nandrolone and related compounds [19], for revealing subcellular localization of the vitamin D receptor and measuring its content in single cells [20], determining the distribution of estradiol receptors [21], and the human progesterone receptor imaging in live cells 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 3 [22].Therefore, the combination of above objectives and constraints led us to consider structures 1a, 1b, and 2 ( Fig.…”

Exploring accessibility of pretreated poplar cell walls by measuring dynamics of fluorescent probes

“…In addition, fluorescent probes [39] were recently shown to provide a more comprehensive view of the nanoporosity of lignified cell walls [40]. Here, for the first time, we have used the FRAP technique to give an overview of the accessibility of lignocellulose sample, depending on the pretreatment applied, the probe size and the cell wall localization, in combination to physicochemical characterization of the pretreated samples.…”