Content area
Abstract
The cellulose system of the viscous fibrous cellulosic polysaccharide (viscan) in the viscin tissue of the European mistletoe, Viscum album L., was analyzed by chemical and physicochemical techniques including sugar analysis, optical and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray and electron diffraction together with solid state CP/MAS 13C-NMR spectroscopy. The results confirmed that in the elongated thin viscin cells, the cellulose microfibrils (having a diameter of around 3 nm) were tightly coiled with their axes perpendicular to the long axis of the cell. Upon stretching these cells became deformed by more than a hundred fold. In such a deformation, the cellulose microfibrils became unwound to be perfectly aligned along the stretching direction. Based on solid-state CP/MAS 13C-NMR spectroscopic analysis of the viscin tissue, it was found that its cellulose consisted of Iα and Iβ polymorphs in the ratio 1:1.
Details
1 Division of Environmental Science and Technology, Department of Bio-environmental Science, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
2 Department of Wood Science and Technology, College of Forest Sciences, Kangwon National University, Chunchon, Republic of Korea
3 Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolécules Végétales, CERMAV-CNRS, Grenoble Cedex 9, ; Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, France