Tag: Development

Adventitious roots typically develop from non-root tissue like shoots either naturally in some species or upon induction by stress in most species. The key roles of auxin signaling in lateral root development are well known but the role of these regulators in adventitious roots with their high phenotypic…

Plants constantly grow post embryonically through shoot and root apical meristems. Multiple transcriptional factors and other regulators fine-tune such growth. Leaf growth from the apical meristem is well studied in the model plant Arabidopsis where two main transcription factors, namely HD-ZIP III (Class…

Plant peptide patterning is popping up everywhere! Now Kawamoto et al. show that a pair of peptides, interacting with receptor proteins, coordinates the placement of ovules in Arabidopsis. They started with a natural variation analysis, which highlighted that several varieties with mutations in the ERECTA…

Plants can modify their growth in response to environmental challenges. In a recent review, Vu et al. summarize the molecular mechanisms underlying high temperature responses during the Arabidopsis life cycle. At early stages, high temperature promotes abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis and decreases gibberellic…

Plants lack organs that are analogous to human ears, eyes or fingertips, yet they can detect changes in their environment. In this review, Dinneny describes how sensing heterogeneities in salt and water leads to changes in root architecture, optimizing soil foraging. The root tip typically follows the…

Plants’ invasion of land was accompanied by the evolution of a root system which in seed plants includes a fast gravitropic response. Gravitropism occurs through three distinct steps – (1) gravity perception by dense starch-filled amyloplasts, (2) transmission of gravitropic signal by auxin through…

Symmetric cell division leads to proliferation, and asymmetric cell division establishes differential growth. Formation of lateral roots (LRs) depends on asymmetric division of initially symmetric founder cells. Barro et al. studied the mechanism of asymmetric radial expansion by analyzing cytoskeleton…

In vascular plants, new organs (e.g., leaves) are produced continuously from the shoot meristem, a process coined indeterminacy. The sister lineage of vascular plants, bryophytes, develop differently, ending with the formation of a determinate spore-bearing shoot (sporangium). The genetic underpinning…