Plant cells shown to use mechanical cues to regenerate damaged tissues

Plants have an impressive ability to regenerate damaged tissues, but how they do it is not fully understood. Now, researchers from Japan have discovered the mechanisms involved in this superpower. In a recently published study in Nature Communications, a research group led by Osaka University has revealed that cells within plant leaves may be able to detect mechanical pressure — or the lack of it — to determine where they are and what type of cells they become in response to damage. In land plants, the epidermis is an outer layer of tissue that forms a boundary between the external environment and the plants’ internal tissues. It protects them from environmental stresses. Studying this cell type revealed that cell fate determination — how a cell develops into a final cell type — depends on a cell’s location within the developing plant; for example, the epidermis only contains surface cells.