Secrets of cellulose

2002/01/07 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Botanika

Cellulose is one of the basic components of plants, as it provides resistance and flexibility, but also humans give it a great use. Paper, wood and cotton are ultimately cellulose. And yet it is not yet clear how plants synthesize cellulose.

Cellulose is a network of glucose molecule chains. Scientists knew that the CesA family of enzymes is dedicated to adding glucose units into the chains, but these enzymes are not able to form chains. That is, they only have the ability to stretch the chains. They investigate the start of chains at the University of California and discover the involvement of a molecule called sitosterol. Sitosterol, a cholesterol-like substance, is combined with a glucose molecule and from there the aforementioned enzymes begin to work.