The Oberh?utchen principle—growth and integrity

摘要

Growth as central task for life is, at the same time, a challenge for integrity: A growing cell has to continuously increase its surface and the same holds true for a growing organism. At the same time, the integrity of the surface must never be interrupted at any single time point to prevent the chemical gradients sustaining life from breaking down immediately. There is only one possible way to resolve this dilemma: the new surface has to be prepared before it will be exposed as novel outer interface. This seemingly trivial strategy is far from trivial in its realisation, because it requires a high level of synchrony and integration. Two contributions in the current issue, from quite different models, show in interesting structural and spatial detail how novel surfaces are generated during growth and division.