Survival of the Aligned: Ordering of the Plant Cortical Microtubule Array
Survival of the Aligned: Ordering of the Plant Cortical Microtubule Array
The cortical array is a structure consisting of highly aligned microtubules which plays a crucial role in the characteristic uniaxial expansion of all growing plant cells. Recent experiments have shown polymerization-driven collisions between the membrane-bound cortical microtubules, suggesting a possible mechanism for their alignment. We present both a coarse-grained theoretical …