Genetic and Phenotypic Analysis of Shoot Apical and Floral Meristem Development

Protocol
First Online:
Part of the Methods in Molecular Biology book series (MIMB, volume 1110)

Abstract

The shoot apical and floral meristems (SAM and FM, respectively) of Arabidopsis thaliana contain reservoirs of self-renewing stem cells that function as sources of progenitor cells for organ formation during development. The primary SAM produces all of the aerial structures of the adult plant, whereas the FMs generate the four types of floral organs. Consequently, aberrant SAM and FM activity can profoundly affect vegetative and reproductive plant morphology. The embedded location and small size of Arabidopsis meristems make accessing these structures difficult, so specialized techniques have been developed to facilitate their analysis. Microscopic, histological, and molecular techniques provide both qualitative and quantitative data on meristem organization and function, which are crucial for the normal growth and development of the entire plant.

Keywords

Shoot apical meristem Floral meristem Inflorescence meristem Stem cells Confocal laser scanning microscopy Histology In situ hybridization Scanning electron microscopy 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

We thank George Chuck, Harley Smith, Sabine Zachgo, Elliot Meyerowitz, Beth Krizek, Joshua Levin, and Mark Running for sharing protocols and suggesting improvements, and Elisa Fiume, Helena Pires, Jinsun Kim, Cristel Carles, Chanman Ha, and JiHyung Jun for helpful comments. This work is supported by grants from the NSF (IOS-1052050) and USDA (CRIS 5335-21000-029-00D).

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Plant Gene Expression Center, USDA-ARS/UCBerkeleyUSA
  2. 2.Department of Plant and Microbial BiologyUniversity of California at BerkeleyBerkeleyUSA

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