What is hemicellulose?

Hemicellulose is a polysaccharide similar to cellulose but consisting of many different sugar building blocks (monomers) in shorter chains than cellulose. It is used as a flexible cell wall support in plants.

-Cellulose is made of many repeating sugar units, as many as 15,000; but -hemicellulose is made of only about 500 to 3,000 sugar units.

-There are many different kinds of hemicellulose found in plant cell walls. Primary cellular walls have predominatly xyloglucan. Other forms of hemicellulose include glucuronoxylan, arabinoxylan, glucomannan, and galactomannan which are found in primary and secondary plant cell walls.

-These molecules are arranged in a less organized waythan regular cellulose and they tend to chemically break apart in acidic or basic conditions.

-They are found abundantly in plant collenchyma cells. These cells have a support function, particularly in young plants. They allow the plant to have support but also be flexible, if bent over the plant (or part) can snap back up.

-Higher levels of hemicellulose in animal feed is favoredbecause the animals will tend to eat less on their own.