Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling BioMed Central Commentary Open Access Size control in growing yeast and mammalian cells Akos Sveiczer*1, Bela Novak1,2 and J Murdoch Mitchison3 Address: 1Department of Agricultural Chemical Technology, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 1111 Budapest, Szt. Gellert ter 4, Hungary, 2Molecular Network Dynamics Research Group of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 1111 Budapest, Szt. Gellert ter 4, Hungary and 3Institute of Cell, Animal and Population Biology, University of Edinburgh, Ashworth Laboratories, West Mains Rd, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, Scotland, UK Email: Akos Sveiczer* -
[email protected]; Bela Novak -
[email protected]; J Murdoch Mitchison -
[email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 16 November 2004 Received: 20 September 2004 Accepted: 16 November 2004 Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 2004, 1:12 doi:10.1186/1742-4682-1-12 This article is available from: http://www.tbiomed.com/content/1/1/12 © 2004 Sveiczer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. cell sizesize controlcheckpointfission yeastcultured Schwann cells Abstract Background: In a recent publication it was claimed that cultured mammalian cells, in contrast to yeasts, maintain a constant size distribution in the population without a size checkpoint. This inference may be challengeable. Results: (1) It is argued that "weak" size control implies the existence of a checkpoint, and unfortunately the technique used by Conlon and Raff might obscure such a weak mechanism.