Dissecting the mechanics of plant cells
Understanding how plants get shaped and integrate mechanical signals during development has been a central question in biology. Morphogenesis relies on the mechanical properties of cells and on their integration of mechanical signals to produce biochemical responses. In this talk, I will expose how we studied these two aspects of plant mechanics with a new look at the single-cell scale. On one hand, we quantified the mechanical properties of single plant cells with a parallel-plate device developed by the team. On the other hand, we assessed how cell shape influences cytoskeletal organisation by confining single plant cells in micro-wells with defined geometry.