Factors that influence patterns in protein distribution — ScienceDaily
In plants, many proteins are found at only one end of a cell, giving them a polarity like heads and tails on a coin.
Often, cells next to each other have these proteins at the same end, like a stack of coins with heads all facing up. This protein patterning is critical for how plant cells orient and coordinate themselves to produce the leaves, flowers, stems and roots that adorn our gardens and provide us with all our food and the oxygen we breathe.
Previously it’s been unclear how this head-to-tail protein patterning is produced: can it arise within each cell, or does it depend on a collective effort of many cells working together?
A new paper, published in Current Biology has found that even cells in isolation can become polarised to create the head to tail pattern, and that this polarity can orient how the cell grows.
The team,