Incorporation of (14)C-L-arabinose into polysaccharides of maize root-tips

[1-(14)C]-L-arabinose was supplied to maize roots over a range of concentrations extending from 0.1 M to 0.04 mM. In each case, only xylose and arabinose units in the cell wall polysaccharides became labelled. However, although uptake increased with concentration, the conversion of L-arabinose to these cell wall units was not greatly influenced by raising the external sugar concentration, and there was no marked accumulation of UDP-pentose under any of the experimental conditions tested. Furthermore, specific activity of the arabinose isolated from the cell wall hydrolysates was always higher than that of the xylose. Because the labelling was so specific, patterns of pentose deposition could be followed by preparing autoradiographs of sections from roots fed with (14)C-L-arabinose. In the pith and cortex, which are typically parenchymatous tissues, the maximum rate of incorporation was observed in cell walls at around 2 mm from the cap-stele junction. These cells had just reached their full width and were about to undergo a phase of rapid elongation. Results are in essential aggrement with those obtained earlier with D-glucuronate in similar experiments.