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.
References
Dale, J.E. (1988) The control of leaf expansion. Annu. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol. 39, 267–295
Evans, M.W. (1940) Developmental morphology of the growing point of the shoot and the inflorescence in grasses. J. Agric. Res. 61, 481–520
Guerrant, E.O. Jr. (1982) Neotenic evolution of Delphinium nudicaule (Ranunculaceae): A hummingbird-pollinated larkspur. Evolution 36, 699–712
Hara, N. (1957) On the types of the marginal growth in dicotyledonous foliage leaves. Bot. Mag. Tokyo 70, 108–114
Hara, N. (1959) Marginal growth of leaves. Nature 183, 1409–1410
Imaichi, R., Kato, M. (1992) Comparative leaf development of Osmunda lancea and O. japonica (Osmundaceae): heterochronic origin of rheophytic stenophylly. Bot. Mag. Tokyo 105, 199–213
Jeune, B. (1987) A model for the morphogenesis stage during leaf growth in dicotyledons. Biol. Zentralb. 106, 615–626
Kato, M., Imaichi, R. (1991) Leaf anatomy of tropical fern rheophytes, with its evolutionary and ecological implications. Can. J. Bot. 70, 165–174
Koornneef M., Dellaert, L.W.M., van der Veen, J.H. (1982) EMS-and radiation-induced mutation frequencies at individual loci in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. Mutat. Res. 93, 109–123
Lee-Chen, S., Steinitz-Sears, L.M. (1967) The location of linkage groups in Arabidopsis thaliana. Can. J. Genet. Cytol. 9, 381–384
Mansfield, S.G., Briarty, L.G. (1992) Cotyledon cell development in Arabidopsis thaliana during reserve deposition. Can. J. Bot. 70, 151–164
McHale, N.A. (1993) LAM-1 and FAT genes control development of the leaf blade in Nicotiana sylvestris. Plant Cell 5, 1029–1038
Meyerowitz, E.M., Pruitt, R.E. (1985) Arabidopsis thaliana and plant molecular genetics. Science 229, 1214–1218
Poethig, R.S., Sussex, I.M. (1985) The developmental morphology and growth dynamics of the tobacco leaf. Planta 165, 158–169
Rédei, G.P. (1962) Single locus heterosis. Z. Vererbungs. 93, 164–170
Sinnott, E.W. (1958) The genetic basis of organic form. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 71, 1223–1233
Smith, L.G., Hake, S. (1992) The initiation and determination of leaves. Plant Cell. 4, 1017–1027
Tsukaya, H., Naito, S., Rédei, G.P., Komeda, Y. (1993) A new class of mutations in Arabidopsis thaliana, acaulis1, affecting the development of both inflorescences and leaves. Development 118, 751–764
Tsukaya, H., Ohshima, T., Naito, S., Chino, M., Komeda, Y. (1991) Sugar-dependent expression of the CHS-A gene for chalcone synthase from petunia in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Physiol. 97, 1414–1421
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
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.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
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
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00199692