2 The Plant Cell Cycle An Overview

This chapter reviews the basic features of plant cell proliferation. Although plant cell division seems to be largely similar to animals and fungi, there are a number of peculiarities that are perhaps related to their lifestyle and development. Initial comparisons of animal, fungal, and plant genomes suggest that the central cell division and growth machinery are largely similar but that some key regulatory molecules found in animals appear to be missing from plants. Also, many of the intracellular signaling molecules that coordinate growth during development and the proteins involved in their perception seem to be different between the groups. In some cases, this reflects true divergence in the underlying mechanism, but high rates of gene sequence divergence could explain other examples. However, what is undisputable is that plant and animal cells are highly adapted to different niches and that this is reflected in quite different behavior.