Plant Cell Monogr (9)
D.P.S. Verma and Z. Hong: Cell Division Control in Plants
DOI 10.1007/7089_2007_125/Published online: 31 July 2007
©Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Cytoskeletal and Vacuolar Dynamics During Plant Cell
Division: Approaches Using Structure-Visualized Cells
To s h i o S a n o^1 ()·NatsumaroKutsuna^1 · Takumi Higaki^1 · Yoshihisa Oda^1 ·
Arata Yoneda^1 · Fumi Kumagai-Sano^2 · Seiichiro Hasezawa^1
(^1) Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwanoha,
277-8562 Kashiwa, Japan
[email protected]
(^2) Faculty of Education, Gunma University, Aramaki, 371-8510 Maebashi, Japan
AbstractDuring cell cycle progression, intra-cellular cytoskeletal and membrane struc-
tures undergo dynamic changes in their form and localization, which in turn regulate
further progress of the cell cycle. Despite the considerable insights into these intra-
cellular structures obtained from immuno-fluorescence microscopy, the need for chem-
ical fixation has limited the acquired images to only static ones. In contrast, more recent
fluorescent protein techniques used to visualize these structures in living cell systems
have allowed investigations of their dynamics. The visualization of microtubules (MTs) by
using the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and the analysis of MT-associated proteins will
be presented. In addition, to further understand plant cell cycle progression, dynamics of
actin microfilaments (MFs) and vacuolar membranes (VMs) visualized with fluorescent
proteins are also reviewed.
1
Introduction
Cell division and cell cycle progression, as well as cell elongation/expansion
and differentiation, are fundamental processes to reconstitute a plant in-
dividual. From a view point of intra-cellular structures, cell division and
cell cycle progression are regulated by two categories of these structures;
membrane organelles, such as vacuoles, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and
Golgi-derived vesicles, and the fibril networks of the cytoskeleton. Of these
various intra-cellular structures, the plant cytoskeleton undergoes the most
dynamic structural changes during cell cycle progression and cell division.
Conventionally, such structures have been observed by indirect immuno-
fluorescence microscopy and microinjection of fluorescent-labeled proteins,
techniques that have provided a great deal of insight into the morphology
of plant cells. During cell cycle progression, the microtubules (MTs), one of
the major cytoskeletons of plant cells, were found to be comprised of four
typical structures; the cortical microtubules, preprophase band (PPB), mi-
totic spindle and the phragmoplast (Zhang et al. 1990; Hasezawa et al. 1991).