Annual Plant Reviews, The Plant Cell Wall

Book excerpt: Annual Plant Reviews, Volume 8 In the last few years, the new analytical tools associated withmolecular biology, biochemistry, spectroscopy, microscopy,immunology, genomics and proteomics have been employed toinvestigate plant cell wall structure and function, providing adegree of resolution that was, until recently, unattainable. Thishas resulted in a growing awareness of the critical role of plantcell walls in a broad range of developmental events, addingstrength and diversity to cell wall-related scientificresearch. This volume provides an overview of our current understanding ofplant cell walls, drawing on the recent advances of plant molecularbiology. It incorporates the identification of a rapidly growingnumber of genes and the proteins responsible for plant wallsynthesis, restructuring, degradation and wall-associated signaltransduction. The book bridges the biochemistry-oriented cell wallliterature and the new technology-driven approaches. This is a book for academic and industrial researchers in plantcell biology, biochemistry, developmental biology, genetics andmolecular biology.