CONFERENCE: 2003 Gordon Research Conference on Plant Cell Walls; Summer 2003, Meriden, New Hampshire

植物细胞壁是植物生命的关键特征之一，对植物的生长、发育和结构力学有着深刻的影响。在植物产生的大约40种细胞类型中，几乎所有的细胞都可以通过其细胞壁的独特特征来识别。据估计，在细胞生长和分化过程中，约有2500个基因参与细胞壁的生物合成。植物细胞壁是木材、纺织和造纸工业中使用的主要原材料，为食品、薄膜、增稠剂和许多其他材料提供了丰富的聚合物来源。由于细胞壁是多个行业的重要原材料来源，我们预计，目前正在研究的许多细胞壁相关基因将通过对植物细胞壁特征的遗传修饰而具有经济重要性。例子包括果胶交联的改性以增加水果和蔬菜的保质期，提高谷物的膳食纤维含量，提高纤维的产量和质量，以及用于生物燃料的壁生物质的碳的相对分配。这次会议是及时和重要的，因为最近在细胞壁生物学和基因组学的许多方面的进展。尤其是分子，遗传和基因组方法在我们对植物细胞壁的组成和结构及其生长过程中的动力学的理解方面取得了重大进展，并且正在确定编码使其生物发生成为可能所需的机制的基因。本次会议将汇集来自学术界，工业界和政府实验室的国际科学家，分享多糖生物合成，木材形成，壁修饰，扩张和与其他生物体的相互作用的最新突破和观点，以及与壁相关的基因的基因组进化分析，以及讨论最近的纳米技术进展，将壁分析带到单细胞水平。戈登会议的目的是相对较小的会议，有充分的机会进行小组讨论，以及科学家之间的一对一交流与不同的方法来处理这个问题。国家科学基金会的资金将用于部分支持会议费用和/或与会者的旅费，特别努力确保青年科学家、妇女和代表性不足的群体的成员以及获得有限赠款支持的发言者和来自较远地区的发言者的代表性。

Plant cell walls are one of the key distinguishing features of plant life and profoundly influence plant growth, development, and structural mechanics. Of the 40 or so cell types that plants make, almost all of them can be identified by unique features of their cell walls. It is estimated that about 2500 genes are involved in cell wall biogenesis during cell growth and differentiation. Plant cell walls are the primary raw materials used in the timber, textile and paper industries and provide a rich source of polymers for food products, films, thickeners and many other materials. Because cell walls are an important source of raw materials for multiple industries, we anticipate that many of the cell wall-related genes now under study will be of economic importance via genetic modification of cell wall characteristics in plants. Examples include the modification of pectin cross-linking to increase shelf life of fruits and vegetables, the enhancement of dietary fiber contents of cereals, the improvement of yield and quality of fibers, and the relative allocation of carbon to wall biomass for biofuels. This conference is timely and important because of recent progress in many aspects of cell wall biology and genomics. This is especially so as molecular, genetic, and genomic approaches are yielding major advances in our understanding of the composition and architecture of plant cell walls and their dynamics during growth, and are identifying the genes that encode the machinery needed to make their biogenesis possible. This meeting will bring together international scientists from academia, industry and government labs to share the latest breakthroughs and perspectives on polysaccharide biosynthesis, wood formation, wall modification, expansion and interaction with other organisms, and genomic & evolutionary analyses of wall-related genes, as well as to discuss recent nanotechnological advances that take wall analysis to the level of a single cell. The Gordon Conferences are designed to be relatively small meetings with ample opportunity for group discussions as well as one-on-one exchanges between scientists with diverse approaches to the topic. NSF Funds will be used for partial support of conference fees and/or travel of participants, with a special effort to ensure representation by young scientists, women and members of underrepresented groups, as well as speakers with limited grant support and those coming from greater distances.