Fig. 5

Observations of stem tissues and cell wall structures. a Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the second-internode stem at the heading stage of rice. b Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images of the sclerenchyma cell walls. PCW primary cell wall, SCW secondary cell wall. c Cell wall polymer determination. d Hemicellulosic monosaccharides composition. e Determination of galacturonic acid (GalA) and glucuronic acid (GlcA). f Immunodetection of transverse sections of fc17 and wild-type (WT) culm internodes. Representative micrographs of equivalent sections of mature culm internodes immunolabeled with antibodies directed to xylan (LM10, LM11, and CCRC-M147), homogalacturonan (HG; JIM5 and JIM7) and rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-1; CCRC-M35) (scale bar = 100 μm). *, ** Indicated significant differences between the WT and fc17 mutant by t-test at p < 0.05 and 0.01, respectively, with the increased percentage (%) calculated by subtraction of the values between mutant and WT and divided by WT. The error bar indicates SD values (n = 3)