ABSTRACT
Plant cell walls are complex structures mainly made up of sugars, which are connected through specific glycosidic linkages whose formation is catalysed by glycosyltransferases. A wealth of genomic information has facilitated the identification of genes encoding putative glycosyltransferases; however, the application of phylogenetic approaches revealed the extensive evolution of this class of enzymes, which makes inference of activities based on sequence comparison difficult. Cloning, purification and biochemical characterisation of key glycosyltransferases as well as recent determinations of glycosyltransferase structures using X-ray crystallography led to the development of models explaining how major plant polysaccharides are synthesised. This chapter discusses the history of glycosyltransferase discovery, summarises current knowledge about these intriguing enzymes and highlights recent advances in methodology and technology to better understand their central role in the synthetic machinery of structural polysaccharides. Finally, future directions for the study of glycosyltransferases are proposed.
