![]() One speculation is that the shape and aspect ratio of these rods may have particular evolutionary advantages.Ī common feature of all walled cells is that the cell wall and turgor pressure give the cell its shape. pombe even have similar aspect ratios (length is approximately four times width), despite a nearly 100-fold difference in volume and qualitatively different spatial patterns of growth. Well-studied examples include bacteria ( Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Agrobacterium tumefaciens), fungi (fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Aspergillus nidulens), and plants (pollen tubes, stem and root axis epidermal cells in Arabidopsis thaliana). The rod, a radially symmetric cylinder with rounded ends, represents a relatively simple geometry that is ubiquitous in unicellular walled organisms. Here, we explore how cells generate rod-like shapes. Comparisons among organisms with a common shape may help to reveal general principles that dictate shape determination and its evolutionary origins. For instance, in addition to traditional molecular cell biology, it will be important to understand the role of cellular mechanics, the material properties of cells, their microenvironment, and evolutionary constraints. Addressing these questions will require the integration of biology, physics, and chemistry. ![]() How are cell shapes generated? Are there reasons why cells have adopted certain shapes over others? Although many shape-determining factors have been identified across divergent organisms, mere characterization of individual cellular components has not revealed how shape is determined, nor has it provided much insight into the context under which these shapes evolved. How nanometer-scale molecular components construct micron-scale cells of specific shapes and sizes remains an outstanding question in biology.
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