arabinoxylan

Arabinoxylan is a form of the hemicellulose xylan found in both the primary and secondary cell walls of plants which in addition to xylose contains substantial amounts of another pentose sugar, arabinose. The term arabinoxylan usually refers to feruloyl-arabinoxylan from grasses and other commelinids containing moieties of the phenolic ferulic acid that can undergo oxidative coupling (in the same way as lignin units) forming crosslinks between arabinoxylan chains and with lignin. Whilst arabinose has been found linked to xylan in non-commelinid plants, ferulic acid has not been reported on these and unlike feruloyl-arabinoxylan these arabinoxylans are not monophyletic. The remainder of this article refers to feruloyl-arabinoxylan from cell walls of grasses and other commelinid species.

==Structure== As with all xylan, the backbone of arabinoxylan chains is composed of a large number of 1,4-linked β-D-xylopyranosyl units. In arabinoxylan many of these xylose units are 3-linked with single α-L-arabinofuranosyl units and some of these arabinose in turn have ester-linked ferulic acid residues. These feruloyl units can undergo radical oxidative coupling forming ferulic acid dehydrodimers and possibly higher oligomers that covalently crosslink arabinoxylan chains. This mode of cross-linking is a key feature of both primary and secondary cell walls in grasses and other commelinid species.