Ultrastructural appearance of embedded and polished wood cell walls as revealed by Atomic Force Microscopy

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was used to investigate the ultrastructural appearance of transverse wood cell wall surfaces in embedded and polished Norway spruce wood blocks. The prepared surfaces showed only little height differences, suitable for high resolution AFM phase contrast imaging. Our results revealed randomly arranged wood cell wall components in the thick secondary 2 (S2) layers of the tracheid cell walls. It is concluded that the observed distribution pattern of the cellulose fibril/matrix structure is close to the original cell wall structure. In this context, the plasticity of wood cell wall components to re-arrange and adjust to different conditions resulting in diverse structural pattern is discussed.