Cell wall is a dead metaphor

Vincent James; Winfried S Peters

doi:10.1016/j.jplph.2023.154099

Cell wall is a dead metaphor

J Plant Physiol. 2023 Nov:290:154099. doi: 10.1016/j.jplph.2023.154099. Epub 2023 Sep 22.

Authors

Vincent James¹, Winfried S Peters²

Affiliations

¹ School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. Electronic address: vincent.james@wsu.edu.
² School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA; Department of Biology, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USA. Electronic address: petersw@pfw.edu.

PMID: 37776572
DOI: 10.1016/j.jplph.2023.154099

Abstract

It was recently suggested to end the usage of the term cell wall in microbiology (including prokaryotes and fungi) because it represented an inappropriate and potentially misleading metaphor (Casadevall and Gow, 2022). The analysis of the arguments for such a move from the viewpoint of the plant physiologist indicates that the suggestion is based on misunderstandings, first, of the early history of cell biology and its terminology; second, of the development of modern concepts of cell wall function since the late 19th century; and third, of the nature of metaphors and their role in scientific communication. We conclude that misconceptions concerning cell walls may arise due to pedagogical shortcomings in introducing students to our technical terminology rather than from the fact that part of this terminology originated from metaphors.

Keywords: Biomechanics; Cell wall; Hugo de Vries; Metaphor; Plasmolysis; Robert Hooke.

MeSH terms

Cell Biology*
Cell Wall*
Metaphor
Terminology as Topic