Squeezing pressure inside cells shapes how plants and animals grow
Tan JYK, Chan CJ
Plant Signaling
The way a leaf curls, a bud swells, or a stem thickens after you stake it isn't random; cells are physically pushing and pressing on each other, and that pressure is a language plants use to decide where to grow next.
Cells inside a growing plant or animal don't just divide on their own schedule; they also feel how tightly they're being squeezed by their neighbors, and that squeezing tells them whether to keep growing, stop, die, or change shape. This review pulls together research from plants, animals, bacteria, and even lab-grown organ tissue to show that this 'pressure sense' is a shared trick of life for building complex shapes like folded leaves, curled petals, or branching roots. Scientists are now building new tools to measure and even control this pressure directly, which could change how we grow food crops and repair damaged tissue.
Key Findings
Tissue pressure arises from multiple sources: cell growth itself, actomyosin muscle-like contraction, topological defects in cell packing, and fluid or extracellular matrix swelling.
This internal pressure directly governs core developmental events including cell proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, tissue folding, and pattern formation across plant and animal systems.
'Homeostatic pressure' regulates tissue growth and cell competition, and new experimental and computational tools are emerging to measure and manipulate this pressure in living plant, animal, bacterial, and organoid tissue.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists reviewing decades of research show that living tissues, from plant shoots to animal embryos, use internal pressure the way an inflating balloon does, to decide when cells divide, die, fold, or take on new roles. Understanding this shared 'pressure code' could help researchers control how tissues grow in crops, wound healing, and lab-grown organs.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Mechanics of compression-driven morphogenesis.
Mechanical forces shape multiscale biological processes across many living systems, ranging from cell proliferation and apoptosis, to tissue folding and pattern formation. In recent years, tissue p...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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