摘要Covalent cross-linking of soluble extraceUular arabinoxylans in living maize cultures, which models the cross-linking of wall-bound arabinoxylans, is due to oxidation of feruloyl esters to oligoferuloyl esters and ethers. The oxidizing system responsible could be H_2O_2/peroxidase, O_2/laccase, or reactive oxygen species acting non-enzymically. To distinguish these possibilities, we studied arabinoxylan cross-linking in vivo and in vitro. In living cultures, exogenous, soluble, extra-cellular, feruloylated [pentosyl-~3H]arabinoxylans underwent cross-linking, beginning abruptly 8 d after sub-culture. Cross-linking was suppressed by iodide, an H_2O_2 scavenger, indicating dependence on endogenous H2O2. However, exogenous H_2O_2 did not cause precocious cross-linking, despite the constant presence of endogenous peroxidases, suggesting that younger cultures contained natural cross-linking inhibitors. Dialysed culture-filtrates cross-linked [~3H]arabinoxylans in vitro only if H_20_2 was also added, indicating a peroxiclase requirement. This cross-linking was highly ionic-strength-dependent. The peroxidases responsible were heat-labile, although relatively heat-stable peroxidases (assayed on o-dianisidine) were also present, Surprisingly, added horseradish peroxidase, even after heat-denaturation, blocked the arabinoxylan-cross-linking action of maize peroxidases, suggesting that the horseradish protein was a competing substrate for [~3H]arabino-xylan coupling. In conclusion, we show for the first time that cross-linking of extracellular arabinoxylan in living maize cultures is an action of apoplastic peroxidases, some of whose unusual properties we report.