Award details

Plant architecture: genes that regulate shoot development

Reference	BBS/E/J/000CA213
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Mary Byrne
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	John Innes Centre
Department	John Innes Centre Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	133,040
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/10/2004
End date	30/09/2009
Duration	60 months

Abstract

In plants most organs of the shoot are specified postembyonically through establishment and maintenance of stem cell populations within the meristem. Stem cells in the centre of the meristem give rise to peripheral region cells that are recruited to form lateral organs such as leaves. Early in development lateral organs establish dorsoventral polarity. Outgrowth of the leaf lamina depends on signalling from the meristem to the initiating leaf, as well as concerted interactions between adaxial (dorsal) and abaxial (ventral) domains of the leaf. We are working on defining genetic pathways and molecular mechanisms regulating these processes. We have identified a number of mutants in Arabidopsis, called piggyback (pgy), that affect leaf adaxial fate and condition ectopic leaf development when combined with mutations in the myb domain transcription factor ASYMMETRIC LEAVES1 (AS1). Most of these mutants are recessive, however, pgy-d1 and pgy-d2 are semi-dominant. Heterozygotes of these two mutants have leaf adaxial defects in the as1 background, whereas homozygotes are embryo lethal. pgy-d1 has been identified as a mutation causing a non-conservative amino acid change in a ribosomal protein. By contrast, five recessive pgy mutants, that also disrupt ribosomal protein genes, are likely hypomorphs. We are interested in further understanding the leaf patterning and embryo defects in pgy-d1 mutants and why the mutation in pgy-d1 affects development in a dose sensitive manner. We anticipate this information will help us to further understand the role of the ribosome and translation in plant development.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Plant & Microbial Sciences (PMS)
Research Topics	Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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