It was time for a little review of animal cell size control since the last one was 5 years ago from Ginzberg, Kafri and Kirschner (2015). A few things have happened since then including a couple of real molecular models for how cell size might lead to cell cycle progression at the G1/S transition. There is a p38 mechanisms proposed by the Kafri lab that restricts cell cycle progression in small cells, and our own Rb dilution mechanism that is proposed to do the same. Importantly, these mechanisms could operate together to ensure small cells have enough time to grow in G1 before entering the cell cycle. In addition, we discuss the need for better cell culture models that recapitulate the strong G1 size control that Mimi Xie observed takes place in vivo in mouse epidermal stem cells. I hope the review is useful to summarize the last 5 years and to set the stage for what I think will be an explosive next 5 years for our field. Here is a link to our current thoughts.
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