Sperm motility and anchoring of the spore capsule in spreading earthmoss

As a component of moors, mosses are important for climate conservation. They are also gaining increasing significance in biotechnology and the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. For the most varied of reasons, mosses are interesting research objects. One reason for this is that they are particularly similar to the first land plants. As a result, they provide insight into the original function of signaling molecules which regulate growth and development in all land plants today.

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Cell division in #moss and animals more similar than previously thought https://phys.org/news/2022-05-cell-division-moss-animals-similar.html

Spindle motility skews division site determination during asymmetric #CellDivision in #Physcomitrella: Elena Kozgunova et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30239-1

Cell division in moss and animals more similar than previously thought

For a new plant to grow from a seed, cells need to divide numerous times. Daughter cells can each take on different tasks and sometimes vary in size. How plants determine the plane of cell division in this process, known as mitosis, is being researched by Prof. Dr. Ralf Reski and Dr. Elena Kozgunova from the University of Freiburg in a joint effort with Prof. Dr. Gohta Goshima from Nagoya University. Working with Physcomitrella—a moss plant, they have now identified how the mitotic apparatus is localized in the plant cell: "Using moss cells we were able to observe an unexpected process that is important for the position of the cell division site in plants. The process could be far more similar to animal cell division than previously thought," Reski from the cluster of excellence CIBSS comments on the results of the study, which has appeared in the journal Nature Communications.