Cytoskeletal and vacuolar dynamics during plant cell division: Approaches using structure-visualized cells

Abstract

During cell cycle progression, intra-cellular cytoskeletal and membrane structures 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 chemical 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. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.