The bacterial cell wall must be constantly remodeled in order to grow and divide. This involves the close coordination of lytic enzymes and peptidoglycan synthesis. In their study published in Nature ...

Scientists reveal new plant cell walls can have significantly different mechanical properties compared to surrounding parental cell walls, enabling cells to change their local shape and influence the ...

Plant cell walls, composed primarily of cellulose, hemicellulose and pectins, serve as dynamic structures that not only provide mechanical strength and protection but also regulate growth, ...

How cells sense their physical state and compensate for cell wall damage is poorly understood. But a new analysis of plants exposed to salt stress offers the first experimental evidence and molecular ...

Plant cell walls have a special ability to expand without breaking or weakening, which is crucial for plant growth. New research has shown that the cellulose skeleton of the plant cell wall is what ...

Blow up a long balloon and two things happen: it gets longer and it gets wider. Now imagine a living cell that inflates itself under enormous pressure and yet only grows longer, never adding width.

Banding patterns of cellulose increase the stability of plant cell walls, much like the corrugated patterns in cardboard. Penn State biologists developed a method to isolate plant cells and observe ...

Water is essential for all living things to survive. But not any water will do. When its hydrogen atoms are substituted by deuterium—the naturally occurring hydrogen isotope with both a proton and a ...

Focusing on the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, new research led by scientists from the University of Sheffield in the U.K., examines how bacteria maintain their unique cell walls and how ...

The composition of an organism’s cell wall is the fourth characteristic used to classify an alga. Diatoms are unique as their cell wall is made of silica. The intricate designs within their silica ...

Biomechanics reveals cell wall age properties and how newly born cells can change their local shape and influence the growth of plant organs Scientists reveal new plant cell walls can have ...