The isolation of plant cell wall preparations with low nitrogen contents

Abstract

Summary Grasses of widely differing maturity have been extracted by two chemical and two enzymic methods in order to prepare cell wall materials with low nitrogen contents. These methods involved extraction, with neutral detergent or phenol-acetic acid-water (1:1:1), or digestion with the proteolytic enzymes pepsin or pronase. Wide differences were noted between these methods with grasses at different levels of maturity, both in the nitrogen content of the residue and the actual yield of cell wall preparation. The more efficient of these methods for removing nitrogenous materials, namely neutral detergent extraction and digestion with pepsin and pronase, were also examined for their effect on the structural carbohydrate and lignin content of the cell wall. In all respects, a method involving incubation with the enzyme, pronase, gave the most satisfactory cell wall preparation.