A Partial Chemical Characterization of Maize Coleoptile Cell Walls prepared with the Aid of a Continually Renewable Filter

Abstract

THE present work was undertaken with the objective (a) of preparing plant cell-wall fragments free of contamination by intact cells, cytoplasm, plastids and other cell inclusions, but containing most of the constituents of the cell wall, including proteins, and (b) of characterizing such a cell-wall fraction chemically. The procedure differed from those previously reported in that a filtration technique was employed for purification of the cell-wall fragments and in that isolation was accomplished in an essentially non-aqueous media. It is believed that the filtration technique may prove generally useful in the preparation of cellular components where purification by differential or gradient centrifugation proves impossible. Previous reports of the chemical composition of plant cell-wall tissue have been based on the residue remaining after extraction of tissue macerates with water¹. Such residues undoubtedly contain particulate cellular inclusions.