Figure 1.
Platelet precursors display bipolar behavior. In this issue, Thon et al. (2010) demonstrate that platelet precursors shift back and forth between two morphological poles, one that is discoid and the other that has barbell-like features (i.e., proplatelets). The authors name the discoid precursor a preplatelet. Both preplatelets and proplatelets contribute to the mature platelet pool.