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Silflow
Cell Biol 4004 section 1
Lecture 40, April 30, 2014
Cell walls and other extracellular matrices:
1. Cell walls are a common feature of all branches of the evolutionary tree
A generalized cell wall is made up from two components:
i. Structural fibers (the reinforcing bars) provide tensile strength
ii. Hydrated matrix (a hydrated gel-like matrix) provides compression strength
2. Prokaryotic cell walls (fig. 24-4)
a. Bacterial peptidoglycan (also called murien) serves as structural fiber and matrix:
i. N-acetylglucosamine (NAC) and N-acetylmuramic acid (NAM) (modified with a
3-5 amino acid peptide) form the disaccharide building block.
ii. After assembly in the cytosol, the NAM-NAC monomers are flipped across the
membrane by a specialized lipid (bactoprenol)
iii. NAM-NAC monomers are polymerized into a long chain; monomers can be
inserted into a pre-existing polymer (transglycosidase)
iv. The chains are cross-linked to adjacent fibrils (transpeptidase)
b. Archaea cells dont have peptidoglycans, instead have N-glycosylated surface proteins as
are found in eukaryotes; assembled at the plasma membrane in archae, in the ER in
eukaryotes (12-51, 52, 53)
i. a core glycan is assembled in the cytosol, flipped across the membrane
ii. the glycan is attached to a nitrogen on an asparagines residue (N-linkage)
iii. in eukaryotes, the N-linked glycan facilitates protein folding in the ER; is further
modified on passage through the Golgi; the glycosylated protein is secreted or
ends up as a plasma membrane protein (13-25, 26, 27)
iv. the sugar residues stabilize proteins, provide hydration, participate in signaling
3. Eukaryotic cell walls/ECM are synthesized by the secretory pathway (mostly)
a. Exceptions are the polysaccharide structural fibers made at the PM (chitin, -glucan,
cellulose, hyaluronan)
b. Vertebrate protein fibrils (collagen, elastin,) are made in the secretory pathway as precursor
proteins and assembly into large fibers once they reach the PM (19-42 to 19-52)
c. Vertebrate protein fibrils are cross-linked covalently
d. Proteins in ECM-fibrils have highly repetitive sequences (collagen, elastin, extensin)
e. Tour of hydrated matrices from various organisms (agar, alginate, pectin, etc.)
f. The vertebrate matrix is made from:
glycoproteins (core proteins modified with N-linked and O-linked
polysaccharides) (Fig. 12-51 to 12-53; 13-25,26) and
proteoglycans (core proteins modified with one or more GAG chain)
i. Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are polysaccharide chains formed from repeating
disaccharide units added to a core tetrasaccharide in the Golgi (19-38 to 41)
ii. Various GAGs are linked to hyaluronan to form huge complexes in the ECM (e.g.
cartilage)
g. Many eukaryotic produce a unique extracellular matrices, for example, from silicon
(diatoms), calcium (bones, teeth), mollusk shells (chitin, calcium carbonate)