Tag: Development

Shoot branching patterns are determined by whether lateral buds are activated or inhibited. Classic studies showed that auxin transport both in the stem and from the bud affects bud outgrowth, and more recent studies have demonstrated a role for strigolactones in regulating bud outgrowth, probably through…

Although plant cells are surrounded by walls, cytoplasmic strands connect adjacent cells through junctions called plasmodesmata. Liu et al. investigated the contributions of plasmodesmata to signaling between root quiescent center (QC) cells and the cells that surround the QC by expression of an inducible…

Monitoring cells and their activities in real time provides exceptional insights into their mechanisms and strategies of growth. Prunet has used live confocal imaging of Arabidopsis flowers to study the placement of floral organs and the dynamics of floral stem cells. Here, he presents a detailed protocol…

Roots are extraordinary examples of developmental plasticity, and hundreds of papers have reported on the mechanisms by which root system architecture responds to the environment and the global nutritional status of the plant. McCleery et al. propose a model that synthesizes evidence of intrinsic, local…

Steroids play a role as essential hormones in plants as well as in animals. In plants, steroids termed brassinosteroids (BR) regulate plant growth and development. BR has been shown to be involved in many processes such as light response, stomata and root development, and flowering in plants. BR-regulated…

Knowing where a gene is expressed provides valuable information about its function, but that information is compromised if the RNA source is contaminated by other tissues. Schon and Nodine investigated the extent to which Arabidopsis embryo and endosperm transcriptome datasets are affected by tissue…

Speciation events result from a combination of molecular, environmental and stochastic (random) factors. Several models developed in the last 150 years help to explain how species emerge, but more recently evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) approaches give us tools to decipher plant speciation.…

The fossil record suggests stomata-like pores were present on the surfaces of land plants over 400 million years ago. Whether stomata arose once or whether they arose independently across newly evolving land plant lineages has long been a matter of debate. In Arabidopsis, a genetic toolbox has been identified…