Cytodifferentiation and Compartmentation

Abstract

This round table discussion concentrated on five topics selected from this very broad field as related to the synthesis and storage of compounds generally designated as being part of so-called secondary metabolism. The first of these topics was the problem of relations between morphogenesis and secondary production, the second was concerned with the question: why do fast dividing cells not produce secondary metabolites, i.e. the correlation between cell division activity and cellular differentiation, and the third one was on the regulation of the expression of specific genes in specialized cells, which eventually led to a thorough discussion on the occurrence of “production” and “storage” cells. The last two topics were concerned with the distribution of enzymes of secondary metabolism between cellular compartments of which the plastids and the vacuoles were favored in the discussion, and on the active movement of enzymes as well as secondary metabolites between various compartments.