Multidisciplinary Agroindustry Research Laboratory, Facultad de Ciencias de La Salud, Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Cinco Poniente No. 1670, Talca, Chile.
División Agroindustrial de Empresas Carozzi S. A., Desarrollo E Innovación Aplicada Agrozzi, Centro Tecnológico de Investigación, Teno, Chile.
Plant Mol Biol. 2024 Jul 12;114(4):84. doi: 10.1007/s11103-024-01481-6.
Expansins are proteins without catalytic activity, but able to break hydrogen bonds between cell wall polysaccharides hemicellulose and cellulose. This proteins were reported for the first time in 1992, describing cell wall extension in cucumber hypocotyls caused particularly by alpha-expansins. Although these proteins have GH45 and CBM63 domains, characteristic of enzymes related with the cleavage of cell wall polysaccharides, demonstrating in vitro that they extend plant cell wall. Its participation has been associated to molecular processes such as development and growing, fruit ripening and softening, tolerance and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress and seed germination. Structural insights, facilitated by bioinformatics approaches, are highlighted, shedding light on the intricate interactions between alpha-expansins and cell wall polysaccharides. After more than thirty years of its discovery, we want to celebrate the knowledge of alpha-expansins and emphasize their importance to understand the phenomena of disassembly and loosening of the cell wall, specifically in the fruit ripening phenomena, with this state-of-the-art dedicated to them.
扩展蛋白是没有催化活性的蛋白质，但能够打破细胞壁多糖半纤维素和纤维素之间的氢键。这些蛋白质于 1992 年首次被报道，描述了黄瓜下胚轴中细胞壁的延伸，特别是由α-扩展蛋白引起的延伸。尽管这些蛋白质具有 GH45 和 CBM63 结构域，这是与细胞壁多糖裂解相关的酶的特征，但它们在体外证明可以扩展植物细胞壁。其参与与发育和生长、果实成熟和软化、耐受生物和非生物胁迫以及种子萌发等分子过程有关。通过生物信息学方法促进的结构见解，突出了α-扩展蛋白与细胞壁多糖之间复杂的相互作用。在发现后的三十多年里，我们希望庆祝对α-扩展蛋白的认识，并强调其对理解细胞壁解体和松动现象的重要性，特别是在果实成熟现象中，为此专门介绍了它们。
