Higher biology - homework help?

Question

what is the mail chemical component of a plant cell wall ?

thanks

Answer 1

Cellulose

Answer 2

mail?...u mean main?

cellulose i believe

Answer 3

Cellulose :)

Answer 4

The main chemical components of the primary plant cell wall include cellulose (in the form of organized microfibrils), a complex carbohydrate made up of several thousand glucose molecules linked end to end.

In addition, the cell wall contains two groups of branched polysaccharides, the pectins and cross-linking glycans. Organized into a network with the cellulose microfibrils, the cross-linking glycans increase the tensile strength of the cellulose, whereas the coextensive network of pectins provides the cell wall with the ability to resist compression. In addition to these networks, a small amount of protein can be found in all plant primary cell walls. Some of this protein is thought to increase mechanical strength and part of it consists of enzymes, which initiate reactions that form, remodel, or breakdown the structural networks of the wall.

Such changes in the cell wall directed by enzymes are particularly important for fruit to ripen and leaves to fall in autumn.

Answer 5

I remember Higher Biology and it was a hard course to get your head around.  Plant cells have cell walls to support the growth of the plant without the need for a skeleton.  Animal cells dont have cell walls because we have a bony skeleton upon which our tissues are supported.  

The cell wall is made mostly from a sugar called cellulose.  Sugars are called carbohydrates and end in the suffix "ose".  If you imagine individual sugar molecules like lego, then putting lego together in different ways will give different shapes, and so cellulose is glucose molecules put together in a different way to make something that is strong and rigid and not powdery and easily dissolved.  This supports the plant tissue enabling it to maintain its shape and ensure it does not disintegrate when pulling water up into its leaves for photosynthesis.

Answer 6

Cellulose is the main component of the cell wall

Answer 7

cellulose supports the plant cell.  

Answer 8

At the level this is pitched at, the following should be sufficient.

Plant cell walls consist of a polysaccharide cellulose (a straight chain of beta-glucose units joined together by 1,4-glycosidic bonds). It is embedded in a matrix of pectins, hemicelluloses and lignin.

Therefore, main chemical component is cellulose and secondary chemicals are lignins and pectins.