Summary Style length is a major determinant of breeding strategies in flowering plants and can vary dramatically between and within species. However, little is known about the genetic and developmental control of style elongation.We characterized the role of two classes of leaf adaxial–abaxial polarity factors, SUPPRESSOR OF GENE SILENCING3 (SGS3) and the YABBY family transcription factors, in the regulation of style elongation inMimulus lewisii. We also examined the spatiotemporal patterns of auxin response during style development.Loss ofSGS3function led to reduced style length via limiting cell division, and downregulation ofYABBYgenes by RNA interference resulted in shorter styles by decreasing both cell division and cell elongation. We discovered an auxin response minimum between the stigma and ovary during the early stages of pistil development that marks style differentiation. Subsequent redistribution of auxin response to this region was correlated with style elongation. Auxin response was substantially altered when bothSGS3andYABBYfunctions were disrupted.We suggest that auxin signaling plays a central role in style elongation and that the way in which auxin signaling controls the different cell division and elongation patterns underpinning natural style length variation is a major question for future research.
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Regulators of early maize leaf development inferred from transcriptomes of laser capture microdissection (LCM)-isolated embryonic leaf cells
The superior photosynthetic efficiency of C 4 leaves over C 3 leaves is owing to their unique Kranz anatomy, in which the vein is surrounded by one layer of bundle sheath (BS) cells and one layer of mesophyll (M) cells. Kranz anatomy development starts from three contiguous ground meristem (GM) cells, but its regulators and underlying molecular mechanism are largely unknown. To identify the regulators, we obtained the transcriptomes of 11 maize embryonic leaf cell types from five stages of pre-Kranz cells starting from median GM cells and six stages of pre-M cells starting from undifferentiated cells. Principal component and clustering analyses of transcriptomic data revealed rapid pre-Kranz cell differentiation in the first two stages but slow differentiation in the last three stages, suggesting early Kranz cell fate determination. In contrast, pre-M cells exhibit a more prolonged transcriptional differentiation process. Differential gene expression and coexpression analyses identified gene coexpression modules, one of which included 3 auxin transporter and 18 transcription factor (TF) genes, including known regulators of Kranz anatomy and/or vascular development. In situ hybridization of 11 TF genes validated their expression in early Kranz development. We determined the binding motifs of 15 TFs, predicted TF target gene relationships among the 18 TF and 3 auxin transporter genes, and validated 67 predictions by electrophoresis mobility shift assay. From these data, we constructed a gene regulatory network for Kranz development. Our study sheds light on the regulation of early maize leaf development and provides candidate leaf development regulators for future study.
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- PAR ID:
- 10379794
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Volume:
- 119
- Issue:
- 35
- ISSN:
- 0027-8424
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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