A Recipe for Cellulose

Cellulose, polymers of glucose organized into long fibrils, forms the bulk of the world's biomass. But the identity of the enzyme that makes this critical substance has been uncertain. In this week's issue, [ Arioli et al .][1] report the first confirmation that the gene CelA is indeed a cellulose synthase, and Carpita and Vergara, in their research commentary, explain why this result has been so long in coming and what we now know about how...