The Control of Cell Division in the Root Meristem

了解生物体的发育需要了解细胞分裂是如何控制的。 虽然人们对细胞周期的调控已经了解了很多，但对发育中的生物体如何控制细胞分裂活动的速度和位置却知之甚少。 本研究以拟南芥根分生组织为模型，旨在加深我们对植物生长器官如何控制细胞分裂空间分布的认识。 该项目将测试有关细胞分裂调节的假设，特别是解决细胞如何决定停止分裂。 当细胞开始膨胀得太快或体积变得太大时，细胞会停止分裂吗？ 虽然这个项目使用植物作为实验材料，但许多关于植物细胞分裂如何控制的知识似乎也适用于动物。 当动物细胞未能停止分裂时，结果可能是癌症;因此，该项目的发现不仅适用于优化农业植物生长，而且最终可能适用于最大限度地减少癌症的威胁。

Understanding the development of organisms entails understanding how cell division is controlled. While a great deal has been learned about the regulation of the cell cycle, much less is known about how a developing organism controls the rate and location of cell division activity. This project aims to deepen our knowledge of how a growing plant organ controls the spatial distribution of cell division, by using as a model the root meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana. The project will test hypotheses about the regulation of cell division, specifically addressing how cells decide to stop dividing. Do cells stop dividing when they start expanding too rapidly or when their volume becomes too great? Although this project uses plants as experimental material, much of what is known about how cell division is controlled in plants appears to be true also for animals. When animal cells fail to stop dividing, the result can be cancer; thus the findings from this project may apply not only to optimizing plant growth for agriculture but might ultimately apply to minimizing the threat of cancer.