O'Neill Malcolm A., Darvill Alan G., Etzler Marilynn E., Mohnen Debra, Perez Serge
Recent research on plant glycan structure and function has typically emphasized model plants such as and plants of commercial importance. However, there is increasing interest in studying the glycans produced by plants from all the major orders of the Viridiplantae. Such studies, together with the availability of transcriptomic data for numerous green algae and land plants, have begun to reveal a rich diversity in glycan structures and insight into how some of these structures have changed during the evolution of the Viridiplantae. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the current knowledge of green plant glycan structures with an emphasis on the features that are unique to land plants. Viridiplantae (green plants) are a clade of photosynthetic organisms that contain chlorophylls a and b, produce and store their photosynthetic products inside a double-membrane-bounded chloroplast, and have cell walls that typically contain cellulose. The Viridiplantae are comprised of two clades—the Chlorophyta and the Streptophyta. The Chlorophyta contain most of the organisms typically referred to as “green algae.” The term “algae” is also used for several other groups of photosynthetic eukaryotes, including diatoms and the red, brown, golden, and yellow-green algae. The Streptophyta comprise several other lineages that are also referred to as “green algae” and the land plants. Land plants include the liverworts, mosses, hornworts, lycopods, ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants.
近期关于植物聚糖结构与功能的研究通常着重于模式植物以及具有商业重要性的植物。然而，对绿藻门所有主要目植物所产生的聚糖进行研究的兴趣正与日俱增。此类研究，连同众多绿藻和陆地植物转录组数据的可得性，已开始揭示聚糖结构的丰富多样性，并深入了解其中一些结构在绿藻门进化过程中是如何变化的。在本章中，我们概述了绿色植物聚糖结构的当前知识，重点关注陆地植物特有的特征。绿藻门（绿色植物）是一类光合生物，含有叶绿素a和b，在双膜包被的叶绿体内产生并储存光合产物，且具有通常含有纤维素的细胞壁。绿藻门由两个分支组成——绿藻纲和链形植物纲。绿藻纲包含大多数通常被称为“绿藻”的生物。“藻类”一词也用于其他几类光合真核生物，包括硅藻以及红藻、褐藻、金藻和黄绿藻。链形植物纲包括其他几个也被称为“绿藻”的谱系以及陆地植物。陆地植物包括地钱、苔藓、角苔、石松、蕨类植物、裸子植物和开花植物。
