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Development: Early events in asymmetric division

Nature Plants volume 1, Article number: 15008 (2015) Cite this article

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Asymmetric cell divisions establish the patterning of stomata in maize. PAN receptor-like kinases were thought to start a signalling cascade leading to pre-mitotic polarization of the cell. Re-analysis of mutants now reveals that the SCAR/WAVE complex is involved in the early initiation of polarity in mother cells.

symmetric divisions, in which a mother cell divides into two daughters of divergent developmental potentials, play a role in the growth of all multicellular organisms because they simultaneously create and organize cellular diversity. Before mitosis, cell polarity not only segregates cell fate determinants but also instructs the positioning and orientation of the plane of asymmetric divisions1. During stomatal patterning in maize, it has been proposed that PANs may act as receptors at the top of a signalling cascade that promotes cell polarization by recognizing ligands emanating from neighbouring cells1. Writing in Nature Plants, Facette et al.2 report that the SCAR/WAVE regulatory complex (WRC), which activates the actin-nucleating ARP2/3 complex3, is unexpectedly required for PAN polarization.

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Figure 1: Proposed model for a dual role of the WRC during the polarization of the SMC division in maize.

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  1. Laura Serna is in the Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente y Bioquímica, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, E-45071 Toledo, Spain.,

    Laura Serna

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  1. Laura Serna
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Correspondence to Laura Serna.

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Serna, L. Development: Early events in asymmetric division. Nature Plants 1, 15008 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2015.8

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