This paper presents an approach to analyze plant root development by means of topological image analysis. For phenotyping of plants their root development, the architecture of their root systems and thereby root characteristics such as branches and branch endings are analyzed. In order to simplify the examination of root characteristics and enable an efficient comparison of roots, a representat...

3 OUTLINE The different cell types of a multicellular organism express different sets of genes. This is one of the oldest statements of developmental genetics. However, how different patterns of gene expression are established in genetically identical cells and maintained during subsequent cell division is still an active topic of research. Especially studies on the involvement of epigenetic mo...

What determines organ size? A screen for plant strains showing natural variation in root length has identified a novel gene that modulates root growth rate by controlling cell division and elongation at the root tip.

Numerous signal molecules move through the phloem to regulate development, including proteins, secondary metabolites, small RNAs and full-length transcripts. Several full-length mRNAs have been identified that move long distances in a shootward or rootward direction through the plant vasculature to modulate both floral and vegetative processes of growth. Here we discuss two recently discovered ...

Pseudomonas fluorescens isolates containing the phlD gene can protect crops from root pathogens, at least in part through production of the antibiotic 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol (DAPG). However, the action mechanisms of DAPG are not fully understood, and effects of this antibiotic on host root systems have not been characterized in detail. DAPG inhibited primary root growth and stimulated later...

Arabidopsis homolog of trithorax1 (ATX1/SDG27), a known regulator of flower development, encodes a H3K4histone methyltransferase that maintains a number of genes in an active state. In this study, the role of ATX1 in root development was evaluated. The loss-of-function mutant atx1-1 was impaired in primary root growth. The data suggest that ATX1 controls root growth by regulating cell cycle dur...

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPKs) cascades are signal transduction modules highly conserved in all eukaryotes regulating various aspects of plant biology, including stress responses and developmental programmes. In this study, we characterized the role of MAPK 6 (MPK6) in Arabidopsis embryo development and in post-embryonic root system architecture. We found that the mpk6 mutation caused...

As soon as plants became independent from homogeneous aquatic environments, root-like organs were developed. The interface between land and water bodies was probably the medium for the earliest land plants. Taking into account that those ancestral root-like organs did not face problems of water and nutrient acquisition, they were probably rather simple. As the earliest plants colonized this med...

Unlike the plant hormone auxin, the mechanism and function of cytokinin transport is poorly characterised. Two new studies now demonstrate that cytokinins transported from shoot to roots via the phloem are critical for creating mutually exclusive auxin and cytokinin signalling domains that control root vascular patterning.

Although most genes use RNA in the form of mRNA as a coding intermediate for protein production, there are many genes whose final products are RNA. These noncoding RNAs range from the familiar transfer and ribosomal RNAs to the more recently discovered regulatory RNAs. One type of regulatory RNA was first discovered during the study of nematode larval development. Two approximately 22nucleotide...