Tumours of higher plants

The coordination of the processes of cell proliferation growth and differentiation in a multicellular organism - that is the organism or system control - is a prerequisite for normal development. Violation of system control mechanisms causes uncontrolled proliferation of cells which leads to tumor growth. The system control of cell proliferation in higher plants has been studied much worse than in animals largely because plants form tumors much less frequently than animals. Such stability of plants to tumor growth is connected with greater reliability of mechanisms of systemic control of cell proliferation in plants which despite a number of similarities have a fundamentally different organization than in animals. In this book we tried to present modern concepts of different levels of control of cell proliferation in higher plants as well as describe the most studied cases of tumor development in plants in terms of mechanisms of systemic control.