Skip to main content

Some NLM-NCBI services and products are experiencing heavy traffic, which may affect performance and availability. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. For assistance, please contact our Help Desk at info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

The Plant Cell logoLink to The Plant Cell
. 1992 Jun;4(6):631–643. doi: 10.1105/tpc.4.6.631

Normal and Abnormal Development in the Arabidopsis Vegetative Shoot Apex.

JI Medford 1, FJ Behringer 1, JD Callos 1, KA Feldmann 1
PMCID: PMC160160  PMID: 12297656

Abstract

Vegetative development in the Arabidopsis shoot apex follows both sequential and repetitive steps. Early in development, the young vegetative meristem is flat and has a rectangular shape with bilateral symmetry. The first pair of leaf primordia is radially symmetrical and is initiated on opposite sides of the meristem. As development proceeds, the meristem changes first to a bilaterally symmetrical trapezoid and then to a radially symmetrical dome. Vegetative development from the domed meristem continues as leaves are initiated in a repetitive manner. Abnormal development of the vegetative shoot apex is described for a number of mutants. The mutants we describe fall into at least three classes: (1) lesions in the shoot apex that do not show an apparent alteration in the shoot apical meristem, (2) lesions in the apical meristem that also (directly or indirectly) alter leaf primordia, and (3) lesions in the apical meristem that alter meristem size and leaf number but not leaf morphology. These mutations provide tools both to genetically analyze vegetative development of the shoot apex and to learn how vegetative development influences floral development.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (5.6 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Bowman J. L., Drews G. N., Meyerowitz E. M. Expression of the Arabidopsis floral homeotic gene AGAMOUS is restricted to specific cell types late in flower development. Plant Cell. 1991 Aug;3(8):749–758. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.8.749. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Oppenheimer D. G., Herman P. L., Sivakumaran S., Esch J., Marks M. D. A myb gene required for leaf trichome differentiation in Arabidopsis is expressed in stipules. Cell. 1991 Nov 1;67(3):483–493. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(91)90523-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Poethig R. S. Phase change and the regulation of shoot morphogenesis in plants. Science. 1990 Nov 16;250(4983):923–930. doi: 10.1126/science.250.4983.923. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. SUSSEX I. M. Experiments on the cause of dorsiventrality in leaves. Nature. 1951 Apr 21;167(4251):651–652. doi: 10.1038/167651a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Shannon S., Meeks-Wagner D. R. A Mutation in the Arabidopsis TFL1 Gene Affects Inflorescence Meristem Development. Plant Cell. 1991 Sep;3(9):877–892. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.9.877. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Smyth D. R., Bowman J. L., Meyerowitz E. M. Early flower development in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell. 1990 Aug;2(8):755–767. doi: 10.1105/tpc.2.8.755. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Ursin V. M., Irvine J. M., Hiatt W. R., Shewmaker C. K. Developmental analysis of elongation factor-1 alpha expression in transgenic tobacco. Plant Cell. 1991 Jun;3(6):583–591. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.6.583. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Plant Cell are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES