Review: Cycling in a crowd: coordination of plant cell division, growth and cell fate (Plant Cell)

Unlike animal cells, plant cells cannot migrate due to the presence of interconnected rigid cell walls, thus plant development relies on a continuous supply of new cells, (fueled by the cell cycle) to form new organs throughout their life. This excellent review by Sablowski and Gutierrez focuses on the intricate regulatory networks and cell cycle key players that integrate cell growth and shape, metabolic activity, cell division and morphogenesis, while at the same time highlighting key questions regarding the missing links between mechanical stress, cell division orientation and chromatin accessibility during cell cycle progression, among other interesting promising research avenues. Furthermore, the authors spotlight the Retinoblastoma pathway, a regulatory module that continues to appear as a central node coordinating different proliferation and differentiation processes mainly through its repressor activity and highly specific physical interactions with master developmental regulators. The authors conclude that although much progress has been made in the plant development field, most of this progress is based on Arabidopsis research, therefore, in order understand the vast diversity of shapes that characterizes plants it will be essential to investigate developmental tool kits through an evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology) lens.   (Summary by Jesus Leon @jesussaur) Plant Cell 10.1093/plcell/koab222