Abstract
The development of leaves in dicotyledonous plants is poorly understood because the division and expansion of cells occur at the same time and in the same positions. Our analysis has revealed that the growth of the cotyledons of Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. depends only on the process of cell expansion. Thus, in this system, the roles of the expansion and division of cells in leaf development can be separated from each other. Analyzing the cotyledon, as a model leaf, we determined that a narrow-leaved mutant of Arabidopsis, angustifolia (an), has a defect in the polarity of the cell-expansion process. The defect was only manifested as the reduced width of blades of cotyledons, an observation which indicates that the direction of expansion of cotyledons is controlled by at least two genetically distinct pathways, one of which is regulated by the Angustifolia gene.
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The authors thank Dr. Y. Komeda (Cell Function and Structure, Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Japan) for helpful discussions. They also thank Dr. J. Bowman (Department of Genetics, Monash University, Clayton, Australia) for a critical reading of the manuscript and for encouragement. They are grateful to the curator of the Botanical Garden, The University of Tokyo, for permitting them to use SEM of the laboratory. H.T. was supported by a fellowship for Japanese junior scientists from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
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Tsukaya, H., Tsuge, T. & Uchimiya, H. The cotyledon: A superior system for studies of leaf development. Planta 195, 309–312 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00199692
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00199692