Characterization of a 1,4-{beta}-D-glucan synthase from Dictyostelium. Final technical report

The study of cellulose biosynthesis has a long history of frustrations, false leads, and setbacks. The authors have been able to proceed further than others who have studied eukaryotic cellulose synthesis because of the high level of enzyme activity in crude membrane preparations from developing Dictyostelium cells. This has made possible experiments to study factors that influence the activity, to determine cellular localization, and to study the development regulation of the enzyme activity. In higher plants, the challenge is still to obtain highly active membrane preparations. However, they have not been able to move beyond the level of crude membranes. The high starting activity of Dictyostelium membranes gave hope that cellulose synthase activity could be purified, allowing the identification of the polypeptides involved in cellulose synthesis. The first step in the purification of a membrane-associated activity is the solubilization of the activity; this they have not yet been able to do. They have applied some of their methods developed in the study of the Dictyostelium glucan synthase to preparation of plant membranes to see if they can obtain any in vitro activity. For instance, the disruption medium, disruption methods, and assay conditions used in Dictyostelium were used to prepare plant membranes, but without obtaining significant levels of enzyme activity