Direct visualization of Non-crystalline Cell wall Components by Ice-embedding Method.

用电子显微镜直接观察纤维素的水悬浮液成为可能。由于纤维素酶解的初步结果表明，酶的协同作用以及纤维素的结构会影响降解效率，因此我们计划研究不同反应时间下的悬浮液。但是，防污器冷却片之间的间隙与现有显微镜的偏振片间隙不匹配，电源控制单元引起的散光影响了高分辨率的观测，整个系统的修复花费了我们相当长的时间。到目前为止，除了图像质量之外，大多数问题已经克服，我们可以安装纤维素电子衍射分析的最佳条件（40度倾斜）。因此我们在确定纤维素分子在生物合成过程中的分子方向性的方式上稍微修改了我们最初的计划，例如确定纤维素是从还原端还是非还原端合成的。到目前为止，这方面的研究已经取得了显著的进展，我们可以提供第一个实验证据，证明纤维素分子的还原端指向生物体外，换句话说，单体的添加发生在原存在的纤维素分子的非还原端。

It became possible to observe aqueous suspension of cellulose directly with an electron microscopy. As the preliminary results of enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose suggest that the efficiency of degradation can be influenced by the synergism of enzymes as well as the structure of cellulose, we planned to investigate the suspension with varying periods of reaction time. However, the problems such as the gap between the cooling fin of the anticontaminator did not fit the gap of the polepiece of the existing microscope, the astigmatism induced by the power control unit prevented the high resolution observation, took us considerable time to repair the entire system. To date, most of the problems, except for the image quality, has been overcome, and we could install the best condition (40 degree tilt) for the electron diffraction analyzes of cellulose. Therefore we slightly modified our initial planning in the way to determine the molecular directionality of cellulose molecules during biosynthesis, for instance, to determine whether cellulose is synthesized from the reducing end or non-reducing end sides. So far, remarkable progress has been made on this subject, and we could show the first experimental evidences that the reducing-end of cellulose molecule points outward the organism, in another word, the addition of monomer occurs at the non-reducing end of the preexisting cellulose molecule.