Author's School

Arts & Sciences

Author's Department

Biology

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-28-2017

Originally Published In

Development vol. 144 no. 23, 4428-4436 DOI https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.154369

Abstract

In plants, aerial organs are initiated at stereotyped intervals, both spatially (every 137° in a pattern called phyllotaxis) and temporally (at prescribed time intervals called plastochrons). To investigate the molecular basis of such regularity, mutants with altered architecture have been isolated. However, most of them only exhibit plastochron defects and/or produce a new, albeit equally reproducible, phyllotactic pattern. This leaves open the question of a molecular control of phyllotaxis regularity. Here, we show that phyllotaxis regularity depends on the function of VIP proteins, components of the RNA polymerase II-associated factor 1 complex (Paf1c). Divergence angles between successive organs along the stem exhibited increased variance in vip3-1 and vip3-2 compared with the wild type, in two different growth conditions. Similar results were obtained with the weak vip3-6 allele and in vip6, a mutant for another Paf1c subunit. Mathematical analysis confirmed that these defects could not be explained solely by plastochron defects. Instead, increased variance in phyllotaxis in vip3 was observed at the meristem and related to defects in spatial patterns of auxin activity. Thus, the regularity of spatial, auxin-dependent, patterning at the meristem requires Paf1c.

Comments

Originally published Development vol. 144 no. 23, 4428-4436 DOI https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.154369 © 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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