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Not so divided: the common basis of plant and animal cell division

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 7, pages 147–152 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Plant cells do not have centrioles and their mitosis is frequently likened to the chromosome-based mechanism seen in acentriolar animal cells. However, this is a false analogy. Although plants can use this mechanism, they generally divide by a method that uses bipolar mitotic caps, which is more similar to the canonical centrosome-based method of animals.

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Figure 1: Mechanisms of plant cell division.
Figure 2: Two mechanisms of mitosis in animal cells.
Figure 3: Polar caps and preprophase bands.
Figure 4: 'Capless' plant cell division resembles the chromosome-based mechanism of animals.
Figure 5: Plant and animal cytokinesis.

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Acknowledgements

C.W.L. and J.C. are supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. We thank G. Calder for assistance with the imaging and H. Buschmann for supplying the image of the GFP–tubulin-labelled N. tabacum BY-2 cell for the contents pages.

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

    Clive Lloyd & Jordi Chan

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  1. Clive Lloyd
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DATABASES

Flybase

Feo

Saccharomyces genome database

Ase1

Swiss-Prot

Eg5

MAP65

PRC1

SPD-1

TPX2

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Lloyd, C., Chan, J. Not so divided: the common basis of plant and animal cell division. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 7, 147–152 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm1831

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