Outstanding problems for future research

Abstract

The increase in interest in plant cell walls over the past few years has been due chiefly to two developments. First, improved methods of polysaccharide separation and analysis have opened up the structure of the wall to detailed study. Secondly, the realization that cell walls have a wide range of biological activities, especially the cell-cell signalling activities of wall polysaccharides, has shown the importance of the detailed chemical structure of the wall and provided clues as to the reasons for its structural complexity.