Cell wall

A cell wall is a structural layer surrounding some types of cells, just outside the cell membrane. It can be tough, flexible, and sometimes rigid. It provides the cell with both structural support and protection, and also acts as a filtering mechanism. Cell walls are present in most prokaryotes (except mollicute bacteria), in algae, fungi and eukaryotes including plants but are absent in animals. A major function is to act as pressure vessels, preventing over-expansion of the cell when water enters. The composition of cell walls varies between species and may depend on cell type and developmental stage. The primary cell wall of land plants is composed of the polysaccharides cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin. Often, other polymers such as lignin, suberin or cutin are anchored to or embedded in plant cell walls. Algae possess cell walls made of glycoproteins and polysaccharides such as carrageenan and agar that are absent from land plants. In bacteria, the cell wall is composed of peptidoglycan. The cell walls of archaea have various compositions, and may be formed of glycoprotein S-layers, pseudopeptidoglycan, or polysaccharides. Fungi possess cell walls made of the N-acetylglucosamine polymer chitin. Unusually, diatoms have a cell wall composed of biogenic silica. A plant cell wall was first observed and named (simply as a 'wall') by Robert Hooke in 1665. However, 'the dead excrusion product of the living protoplast' was forgotten, for almost three centuries, being the subject of scientific interest mainly as a resource for industrial processing or in relation to animal or human health. In 1804, Karl Rudolphi and J.H.F. Link proved that cells had independent cell walls. Before, it had been thought that cells shared walls and that fluid passed between them this way. The mode of formation of the cell wall was controversial in the 19th century. Hugo von Mohl (1853, 1858) advocated the idea that the cell wall grows by apposition. Carl Nägeli (1858, 1862, 1863) believed that the growth of the wall in thickness and in area was due to a process termed intussusception. Each theory was improved in the following decades: the apposition (or lamination) theory by Eduard Strasburger (1882, 1889), and the intussusception theory by Julius Wiesner (1886). In 1930, Ernst Münch coined the term apoplast in order to separate the 'living' symplast from the 'dead' plant region, the latter of which included the cell wall. By the 1980s, some authors suggested replacing the term 'cell wall', particularly as it was used for plants, with the more precise term 'extracellular matrix', as used for animal cells,:168 but others preferred the older term. Cell walls serve similar purposes in those organisms that possess them. They may give cells rigidity and strength, offering protection against mechanical stress. In multicellular organisms, they permit the organism to build and hold a definite shape (morphogenesis). Cell walls also limit the entry of large molecules that may be toxic to the cell. They further permit the creation of stable osmotic environments by preventing osmotic lysis and helping to retain water. Their composition, properties, and form may change during the cell cycle and depend on growth conditions.