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Arabinogalactan proteins are a diverse group of cell wall-associated proteoglycans. While structural and molecular genetic analyses have contributed to the emerging improved understanding of the wide-range of biological processes in which AGPs are implicated; the ability to detect, localize, and quantify them is fundamentally important. This chapter describes three methods: histological staining, radial gel diffusion, and colorimetric quantification, each of which utilize the ability of Yariv reagent to bind to AGPs.

In the unicellular flagellated green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii several processes are regulated by the circadian clock. To study circadian controlled processes, the cell's clock is synchronized in a 12 h light-12 h dark cycle (LD12:12) before the cells are released into constant conditions of dim light and temperature. Under these free-running conditions circadian rhythms will continue with a period of about 24 h and cells can be harvested during specific time-points of subjective day and night. These cells were then used for isolating basic proteins by heparin-affinity chromatography, separating them on two-dimensional PAGE and comparing the amount of their expression at four different time-points of subjective day and night. Among 230 proteins, we could find two proteins whose expression level changed more than fourfold throughout the circadian cycle. These proteins were identified as a protein disulfide isomerase (PDI)-like protein and a tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) protein by liquid-chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS).