Defining how organ size is regulated, a process controlled not only by the number of cells
but also by the size of the cells, is a frontier in developmental biology. Large cells are …

Endoreduplication is the major source of somatic endopolyploidy in higher plants, and leads
to variation in cell ploidy levels due to iterative rounds of DNA synthesis in the absence of …

Polyploidy is a key mechanism of genome evolution and speciation, particularly in plants.
Many aspects of polyploidy have been elucidated with the tools that have become available …

Although it is a central question in biology, how cell shape controls intracellular dynamics
largely remains an open question. Here, we show that the shape of Arabidopsis pavement …

Ploidy and size phenomena are observed to be correlated across several biological scales,
from subcellular to organismal. Two kinds of ploidy change can affect plants. Whole-genome …

© 2012 Marshall et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http …

The control of the location and activity of stem cells depends on spatial regulation of gene
activities in the stem cell niche. Using computational and experimental approaches, we have …

To battle adverse internal and external conditions and maintain homeostasis, diploid
organisms employ various cellular processes, such as proliferation and apoptosis. In some …

Organ sizes and shapes are strikingly reproducible, despite the variable growth and division
of individual cells within them. To reveal which mechanisms enable this precision, we …

The leaf epidermis comprises the outermost layer of cells that protect plants against
environmental stresses such as drought, ultraviolet radiation, and pathogen attack …