Results obtained by Costa et al. in a new study of a maize mutation indicate that some of the mechanisms that determine cell fate during animal development also act in some plants (see p. 5009). The recessive lethal mutation globby1-1 (glo1-1) is characterised by an aberrant globular embryo and endosperm morphology. In their detailed developmental analysis of glo1-1 mutant seeds, Costa and co-workers report that embryonic pattern formation is impaired, and that glo1-1 mutants have aberrant nuclear and cell proliferation in the early syncytial endosperm and cellular endosperm, respectively. Local disruptions in the organisation of the basal endosperm transfer layer (BETL)that followed on from these early abnormalities, they suggest, occurred because BETL cells differentiate in a lineage-dependent manner – a common mechanism for cell-fate specification in animals such as Drosophila that is, however, rare in plants.
Cell-fate specification in plants and animals converge
Cell-fate specification in plants and animals converge. Development 15 October 2003; 130 (20): e2006. doi:
Download citation file:
Advertisement
Cited by
Call for papers: Uncovering Developmental Diversity
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue: Uncovering Developmental Diversity. This issue will be coordinated by our academic Editor Cassandra Extavour (Harvard University, USA) alongside two Guest Editors: Liam Dolan (Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria) and Karen Sears (University of California Los Angeles, USA).
Choose Development in 2024
In this Editorial, Development Editor-in-Chief James Briscoe and Executive Editor Katherine Brown explain how you support your community by publishing in Development and how the journal champions serious science, community connections and progressive publishing.
Journal Meeting: From Stem Cells to Human Development
Register now for the 2024 Development Journal Meeting From Stem Cells to Human Development. Early-bird registration deadline: 3 May. Abstract submission deadline: 21 June.
Pluripotency of a founding field: rebranding developmental biology
This collaborative Perspective, the result of a workshop held in 2023, proposes a set of community actions to increase the visibility of the developmental biology field. The authors make recommendations for new funding streams, frameworks for collaborations and mechanisms by which members of the community can promote themselves and their research.
Read & Publish Open Access publishing: what authors say
We have had great feedback from authors who have benefitted from our Read & Publish agreement with their institution and have been able to publish Open Access with us without paying an APC. Read what they had to say.