Abstract
The size, shape and stability of a plant depend on the flexibility and integrity of its cell walls, which, at the same time, need to allow cell expansion for growth, while maintaining mechanical stability. Biomechanical studies largely vanished from the focus of plant science with the rapid progress of genetics and molecular biology since the mid-twentieth century. However, the development of more sensitive measurement tools renewed the interest in plant biomechanics in recent years, not only to understand the fundamental concepts of growth and morphogenesis, but also with regard to economically important areas in agriculture, forestry and the paper industry. Recent advances have clearly demonstrated that mechanical forces play a crucial role in cell and organ morphogenesis, which ultimately define plant morphology. In this article, we will briefly review the available methods to determine the mechanical properties of cell walls, such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) and microindentation assays, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. But we will focus on a novel methodological approach, called cellular force microscopy (CFM), and its automated successor, real-time CFM (RT-CFM).
Highlights
The size, shape and stability of a plant depend on the flexibility and integrity of its cell walls, which, at the same time, need to allow cell expansion for growth, while maintaining mechanical stability
Special attention has been paid to the mechanical properties of the cell wall, which plays an important role in plant stability and the resistance against pathogens
The main focus will be on pollen tubes and the effect of alterations in the biochemical composition of their cell wall on its mechanical properties
Summary
Cytomechanical studies gained increasing interest over the last years after having been neglected for a long time. In the first part of this review, we will provide a few examples of well-known agricultural and industrial problems that are related to the mechanical properties of the plant cell wall. Knowledge about the correlation between the biochemical composition and the mechanical stability of the cell wall could help to produce crops that reach the full yield potential, while being more resistant to lodging. A reduction in lignin content, as it occurs in the brown midrib mutants of maize and sorghum [23,24,25], leads to better digestibility and higher milk production in dairy cattle [26] This comes at the cost of lower yield, mostly due to lodging. Changes in the shape and size of a cell during morphogenesis result from the deformation and modification of the existing cell wall, as well as from the secretion and deposition of newly-synthesized wall materials
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