Molecular Control of Division Site Maintenance

Plant cells are surrounded by rigid cell walls which confine their shape and determine their location within tissues. Thus the position of a new cell wall formed during cytokinesis contributes to the shape of the cell and consequently to the overall morphology of the plant. We are investigating how plant cells maintain the division plane throughout mitosis using the Arabidopsis root meristem as a model.

In plants the positional information of the future division plane is specified at G2/M transition, although the new cell plate is synthesized much later in cytokinesis aided by the phragmoplast (Figure 1A). This poses the question, how the cell "memorizes" the selected plane.