1,721,106 research outputs found

    Usual and unusual development of the dicot leaf: Involvement of transcription factors and hormones

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    Morphological diversity exhibited by higher plants is essentially related to the tremendous variation of leaf shape. With few exceptions, leaf primordia are initiated postembryonically at the flanks of a group of undifferentiated and proliferative cells within the shoot apical meristem (SAM) in characteristic position for the species and in a regular phyllotactic sequence. Auxin is critical for this process, because genes involved in auxin biosynthesis, transport, and signaling are required for leaf initiation. Down-regulation of transcription factors (TFs) and cytokinins are also involved in the light-dependent leaf initiation pathway. Furthermore, mechanical stresses in SAM determine the direction of cell division and profoundly influence leaf initiation suggesting a link between physical forces, gene regulatory networks and biochemical gradients. After the leaf is initiated, its further growth depends on cell division and cell expansion. Temporal and spatial regulation of these processes determines the size and the shape of the leaf, as well as the internal structure. A complex array of intrinsic signals, including phytohormones and TFs control the appropriate cell proliferation and differentiation to elaborate the final shape and complexity of the leaf. Here, we highlight the main determinants involved in leaf initiation, epidermal patterning, and elaboration of lamina shape to generate small marginal serrations, more deep lobes or a dissected compound leaf. We also outline recent advances in our knowledge of regulatory networks involved with the unusual pattern of leaf development in epiphyllous plants as well as leaf morphology aberrations, such as galls after pathogenic attacks of pests

    CYCLOIDEA 2 Clade Genes: Key Players in the Control of Floral Symmetry, Inflorescence Architecture, and Reproductive Organ Development

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    Undoubted lines of evidence point out that members of CYCLOIDEA (CYC) 2 clade are essential players to control flower symmetry and, amusingly, also are determinants of capitula architecture (pseudanthium). In several species, CYC-like genes influence the androecium patterning, but to date, the function of these genes in the development of gynoecium organs is less clear. In this review, we first reported details about floral symmetry and an overview of genes and molecular mechanisms regulating the development of zygomorphism in different angiosperm lineages (e.g., basal and core eudicots and monocots). Then, we paid emphasis on the role of CYC-like genes in the development of heterogamous inflorescence of sunflower as well as other Asteraceae and some species within the Dipsacaceae family. Helianthus annuus is particularly attractive because it represents a useful model to study the role of CYC-like genes on shaping floral corolla as well as the differentiation of reproductive organs in different flowers of pseudanthia. A special attention was reserved to inflorescence morphology mutants of sunflower (i.e., Chrysanthemoids2 and tubular ray flower) because they provide useful information on the role of CYC-like genes in the radiate capitulum evolution. Finally, we discuss data from literature to suggest that CYC-like genes are also co-opted to regulate stamen and carpel differentiation likely throughout their interaction with the cell cycle and flower organ identity genes. The recruitment of reproductive organs in ray flowers also supports the phylogenetic origin of a radiate inflorescence of sunflower from a discoid capitulum and suggests that in sterile zygomorphic ray flower primordia the latent identity to differentiate both microsporangium and macrosporangium was conserved
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