Review

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 5, 13-23 (January 2004) | doi:10.1038/nrm1277

Article series: Plant Biology

Microtubules and the shape of plants to come

Clive Lloyd1 & Jordi Chan1  About the authors

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Plants control the direction of cell expansion as a way of shaping growth. Since their discovery in plants 40 years ago, microtubules have been suspected of forming a template that helps to regulate the direction of growth. The detailed mechanism, however, has been elusive, especially as plants lack a microtubule-organizing centre. Developmental mutants are now beginning to show how microtubules are organized and how this affects plant morphology.

Author affiliations

  1. Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich NR4 7UH, UK.

Correspondence to: Clive Lloyd1 Email: clive.lloyd@bbsrc.ac.uk

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