The first intron of ARF7 is required for expression in root tips.

Auxin regulates plant growth and development through the transcription factors of the AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR (ARF) gene family. ARF7 is one of five activators that bind DNA and elicit downstream transcriptional responses. In roots, ARF7 regulates growth, gravitropism and redundantly with ARF19, lateral root organogenesis.

Systems approaches reveal that ABCB and PIN proteins mediate co-dependent auxin efflux.

Members of the B family of membrane-bound ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters represent key components of the auxin efflux machinery in plants. Over the last two decades, experimental studies have shown that modifying ATP-binding cassette sub-family B (ABCB) expression affects auxin distribution and plant phenotypes. However, precisely how ABCB proteins transport auxin in conjunction with the more widely studied family of PIN-formed (PIN) auxin efflux transporters is unclear, and studies using heterologous systems have produced conflicting results.

Dual expression and anatomy lines allow simultaneous visualization of gene expression and anatomy.

Studying the developmental genetics of plant organs requires following gene expression in specific tissues. To facilitate this, we have developed dual expression anatomy lines, which incorporate a red plasma membrane marker alongside a fluorescent reporter for a gene of interest in the same vector. Here, we adapted the GreenGate cloning vectors to create two destination vectors showing strong marking of cell membranes in either the whole root or specifically in the lateral roots.

Uncovering How Auxin Optimizes Root Systems Architecture in Response to Environmental Stresses.

Since colonizing land, plants have developed mechanisms to tolerate a broad range of abiotic stresses that include flooding, drought, high salinity, and nutrient limitation. Roots play a key role acclimating plants to these as their developmental plasticity enables them to grow toward more favorable conditions and away from limiting or harmful stresses. The phytohormone auxin plays a key role translating these environmental signals into developmental outputs.

Volumetric Segmentation of Cell Cycle Markers in Confocal Images Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning.

Understanding plant growth processes is important for many aspects of biology and food security. Automating the observations of plant development-a process referred to as plant phenotyping-is increasingly important in the plant sciences, and is often a bottleneck. Automated tools are required to analyze the data in microscopy images depicting plant growth, either locating or counting regions of cellular features in images.

Auxin fluxes through plasmodesmata modify root-tip auxin distribution.

Auxin is a key signal regulating plant growth and development. It is well established that auxin dynamics depend on the spatial distribution of efflux and influx carriers on the cell membranes. In this study, we employ a systems approach to characterise an alternative symplastic pathway for auxin mobilisation via plasmodesmata, which function as intercellular pores linking the cytoplasm of adjacent cells.

Cell Death in Cells Overlying Lateral Root Primordia Facilitates Organ Growth in Arabidopsis.

Plant organ growth is widely accepted to be determined by cell division and cell expansion, but, unlike that in animals, the contribution of cell elimination has rarely been recognized. We investigated this paradigm during Arabidopsis lateral root formation, when the lateral root primordia (LRP) must traverse three overlying cell layers within the parent root. A subset of LRP-overlying cells displayed the induction of marker genes for cell types undergoing developmental cell death, and their cell death was detected by electron, confocal, and light sheet microscopy techniques.

PUCHI regulates very long chain fatty acid biosynthesis during lateral root and callus formation.

Lateral root organogenesis plays an essential role in elaborating plant root system architecture. In , the AP2 family transcription factor PUCHI controls cell proliferation in lateral root primordia. To identify potential targets of PUCHI, we analyzed a time course transcriptomic dataset of lateral root formation.

Auxin Metabolism Controls Developmental Decisions in Land Plants.

Unlike animals, whose body plans are set during embryo development, plants maintain the ability to initiate new organs throughout their life cycle. Auxin is a key regulator of almost all aspects of plant development, including morphogenesis and adaptive responses. Cellular auxin concentrations influence whether a cell will divide, grow, or differentiate, thereby contributing to organ formation, growth, and ultimately plant shape.

Author Correction: A mechanistic framework for auxin dependent Arabidopsis root hair elongation to low external phosphate.

The original version of this Article omitted the following from the Acknowledgements: 'We also thank DBT-CREST BT/HRD/03/01/2002.' This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

A mechanistic framework for auxin dependent Arabidopsis root hair elongation to low external phosphate.

Phosphate (P) is an essential macronutrient for plant growth. Roots employ adaptive mechanisms to forage for P in soil. Root hair elongation is particularly important since P is immobile.

Dynamic regulation of auxin oxidase and conjugating enzymes AtDAO1 and GH3 modulates auxin homeostasis.

The hormone auxin is a key regulator of plant growth and development, and great progress has been made understanding auxin transport and signaling. Here, we show that auxin metabolism and homeostasis are also regulated in a complex manner. The principal auxin degradation pathways in Arabidopsis include oxidation by Arabidopsis thaliana gene DIOXYGENASE FOR AUXIN OXIDATION 1/2 (AtDAO1/2) and conjugation by Gretchen Hagen3s (GH3s).

Dioxygenase-encoding AtDAO1 gene controls IAA oxidation and homeostasis in Arabidopsis.

Auxin represents a key signal in plants, regulating almost every aspect of their growth and development. Major breakthroughs have been made dissecting the molecular basis of auxin transport, perception, and response. In contrast, how plants control the metabolism and homeostasis of the major form of auxin in plants, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), remains unclear.

Tonoplast Aquaporins Facilitate Lateral Root Emergence.

Aquaporins (AQPs) are water channels allowing fast and passive diffusion of water across cell membranes. It was hypothesized that AQPs contribute to cell elongation processes by allowing water influx across the plasma membrane and the tonoplast to maintain adequate turgor pressure. Here, we report that, in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), the highly abundant tonoplast AQP isoforms AtTIP1;1, AtTIP1;2, and AtTIP2;1 facilitate the emergence of new lateral root primordia (LRPs).

The circadian clock rephases during lateral root organ initiation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The endogenous circadian clock enables organisms to adapt their growth and development to environmental changes. Here we describe how the circadian clock is employed to coordinate responses to the key signal auxin during lateral root (LR) emergence. In the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, LRs originate from a group of stem cells deep within the root, necessitating that new organs emerge through overlying root tissues.

Inference of the Arabidopsis lateral root gene regulatory network suggests a bifurcation mechanism that defines primordia flanking and central zones.

A large number of genes involved in lateral root (LR) organogenesis have been identified over the last decade using forward and reverse genetic approaches in Arabidopsis thaliana. Nevertheless, how these genes interact to form a LR regulatory network largely remains to be elucidated. In this study, we developed a time-delay correlation algorithm (TDCor) to infer the gene regulatory network (GRN) controlling LR primordium initiation and patterning in Arabidopsis from a time-series transcriptomic data set.

Branching out in roots: uncovering form, function, and regulation.

Root branching is critical for plants to secure anchorage and ensure the supply of water, minerals, and nutrients. To date, research on root branching has focused on lateral root development in young seedlings. However, many other programs of postembryonic root organogenesis exist in angiosperms.

AtMYB93 is a novel negative regulator of lateral root development in Arabidopsis.

Plant root system plasticity is critical for survival in changing environmental conditions. One important aspect of root architecture is lateral root development, a complex process regulated by hormone, environmental and protein signalling pathways. Here we show, using molecular genetic approaches, that the MYB transcription factor AtMYB93 is a novel negative regulator of lateral root development in Arabidopsis.

Delivery of endocytosed proteins to the cell-division plane requires change of pathway from recycling to secretion.

Membrane trafficking is essential to fundamental processes in eukaryotic life, including cell growth and division. In plant cytokinesis, post-Golgi trafficking mediates a massive flow of vesicles that form the partitioning membrane but its regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we identify functionally redundant Arabidopsis ARF guanine-nucleotide exchange factors (ARF-GEFs) BIG1-BIG4 as regulators of post-Golgi trafficking, mediating late secretion from the trans-Golgi network but not recycling of endocytosed proteins to the plasma membrane, although the TGN also functions as an early endosome in plants.

Modelling hormonal response and development.

As our knowledge of the complexity of hormone homeostasis, transport, perception, and response increases, and their outputs become less intuitive, modelling is set to become more important. Initial modelling efforts have focused on hormone transport and response pathways. However, we now need to move beyond the network scales and use multicellular and multiscale modelling approaches to predict emergent properties at different scales.

From jellyfish to biosensors: the use of fluorescent proteins in plants.

The milestone discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, its optimisation for efficient use in plantae, and subsequent improvements in techniques for fluorescent detection and quantification have changed plant molecular biology research dramatically. Using fluorescent protein tags allows the temporal and spatial monitoring of dynamic expression patterns at tissue, cellular and subcellular scales. Genetically-encoded fluorescence has become the basis for applications such as cell-type specific transcriptomics, monitoring cell fate and identity during development of individual organs or embryos, and visualising protein-protein interactions in vivo.

Auxin regulates aquaporin function to facilitate lateral root emergence.

Aquaporins are membrane channels that facilitate water movement across cell membranes. In plants, aquaporins contribute to water relations. Here, we establish a new link between aquaporin-dependent tissue hydraulics and auxin-regulated root development in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Identifying biological landmarks using a novel cell measuring image analysis tool: Cell-o-Tape.

Background: The ability to quantify the geometry of plant organs at the cellular scale can provide novel insights into their structural organization. Hitherto manual methods of measurement provide only very low throughput and subjective solutions, and often quantitative measurements are neglected in favour of a simple cell count.

Results: We present a tool to count and measure individual neighbouring cells along a defined file in confocal laser scanning microscope images.

The influence of cytokinin-auxin cross-regulation on cell-fate determination in Arabidopsis thaliana root development.

Root growth and development in Arabidopsis thaliana are sustained by a specialised zone termed the meristem, which contains a population of dividing and differentiating cells that are functionally analogous to a stem cell niche in animals. The hormones auxin and cytokinin control meristem size antagonistically. Local accumulation of auxin promotes cell division and the initiation of a lateral root primordium.