Editorial Microtubules Show their Sensitive Nature

Since their first description in plant cells four decades ago (Ledbetter and Porter 1963), cortical microtubules have been the subject of research that has primarily focussed on the rela-tionship between cortical microtubule orientation and cellulose microfibril alignment during morphogenesis. This research has emphasized microtubules behaving as static elements, with their structural properties put to useful work as scaffolds and barriers. Just how microtubules do this, however, is still a mat-ter of debate, and recent conflicting interpretations (compare, for example, Burk and Ye 2002 and Sugimoto et al. 2003) sug-gest that we are far away from understanding this phenomenon. What other functions do plant cortical microtubules have? Their intimate association with the plasma membrane, the major platform for signal perception and transduction (Gilroy and Trewavas 2001, Wasteneys and Galway 2003), suggest