Unlocking long-hidden mechanisms of plant cell division
Friday, September 26, 2014 - 05:30
in Biology & Nature
Along with copying and splitting DNA during division, cells must have a way to break safely into two viable daughter cells, a process called cytokinesis. But the molecular basis of how plant cells accomplish this without mistakes has been unclear for many years. Now a detailed new model that for the first time proposes how plant cells precisely position a 'dynamic and complex' structure called a phragmoplast at the cell center during every division and how it directs cytokinesis.