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John Innes Centre

Cell Growth and Determination

Project Leaders:

Peter Shaw
Clive Lloyd

Cells are the fundamental unit of biological activity, and the unique structure of plant cells and their oriented cell divisions play a key role in determining organ shape.

A scanning electron microscope image is of a root of a plant containing a mutation in the SUPERCENTIPEDE1 gene
This scanning electron microscope image is of a root of a plant containing a mutation in the SUPERCENTIPEDE1 gene. Multiple sites of hair outgrowth occur in this mutant while wild type cells develop a single site of outgrowth This indicates that SCN1 activity is required to spatially restrict the sites of outgrowth on hair cells.

The main challenges in this area are to understand the dynamics of cell activities and how cell identity is determined. We also aim to understand how cells and organs are formed and change in shape during growth and development, the evolution and development of plant architecture, and how cell proliferation and growth control mechanisms regulate these processes.

We explore cell activities using live cell imaging and aim to integrate known of plant cells from the scale of small molecules to proteins, complexes and organelles.