Faster cell mixing leads to larger plants
Friday, January 24, 2014 - 11:50
in Physics & Chemistry
The contents of plant cells undergo continuous mixing by a process known as cytoplasmic streaming. Yet although this process was discovered more than 200 years ago, its exact purpose has remained unclear. Motoki Tominaga from the Live Cell Molecular Imaging Research Team at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics and colleagues have now shown that the speed of cytoplasmic streaming is a key factor in determining plant size.