Abstract
Both thick- and thin-walled sieve tubes in leaf-blade veins of Hordeum vulgare L. exhibit a distinct, electron-opaque inner wall layer after fixation in glutaraldehyde-osmium tetroxide and staining with uranyl acetate and lead citrate. This inner wall layer is thickest at the sieve plates and lateral sieve areas where it is permeated by a labyrinth of tubules formed by the plasmalemma. Along the lateral walls between sieve areas the inner wall layer apparently is penetrated by numerous microvilli-like evaginations of the plasmalemma, giving the cell wall-plasmalemma interface the appearance of a brush border. It is suggested that a similar brush-border-like structure may occur at the cell wall-plasmalemma interface of sieve elements in a wide variety of vascular plants.
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Abbreviations
- ER:
-
endoplasmic reticulum
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Evert, R.F., Mierzwa, R.J. The cell wall-plasmalemma interface in sieve tubes of barley. Planta 177, 24–34 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00392151
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00392151