Compensatory cellular hypertrophy: the other strategy for tissue homeostasis

Metazoan tissues have the ability to maintain tissue size and morphology while eliminating aberrant or damaged cells. In the tissue homeostasis system, cell division is the primary strategy cells use not only to increase tissue size during development but also to compensate for cell loss in tissue repair. Recent studies in Drosophila , however, have shown that cells in postmitotic tissues undergo hypertrophic growth without division, contributing to tissue repair as well as organ development. Indeed, similar compensatory cellular hypertrophy (CCH) can be observed in different contexts such as mammalian hepatocytes or corneal endothelial cells. Here we highlight these findings and discuss the underlying mechanisms of CCH, which is likely an evolutionarily conserved strategy for homeostatic tissue growth in metazoans.