High-Resolution Imaging of Cortical Microtubule Arrays

摘要

Plant cortical microtubules (CMTs) form highly organized arrays in the cell cortex adjacent to the plasma membrane. In the early 1960s, it was discovered that glutar-aldehyde fixation could preserve the fine structure of microtubules for electron microscopy (Ledbetter and Porter, 1963; Hepler and Newcomb, 1964). Ledbetter and Porter (1963) asked whether there might be any organization within the cytoplasm that "anticipates and influences the deposition of specific patterns of thickenings in secondarywalls of plant cells." They studied the fine structure of CMTs from the grass Phleum pratense and thought it could be of significance that microtubules lying beneath the surface of the protoplast mirrored the orientation of cellulose micro-fibrils in the adjacent cell walls. Hepler and Newcomb (1964), working with Coleus blumei, showed that groupings of CMTs were aligned parallel to underlying bands of cellulose in the secondary wall of differentiating xylem elements, providing more solid support for a functional connection between CMTs and cellulose deposition.