The initiation of new lateral roots in Arabidopsis occurs at predictable distances from the growing tip and depends on auxin transport and redistribution. However, the precise mechanism that regulates the positioning of new roots has remained elusive. Tom Beeckman and colleagues now show, on p. 681, how oscillating waves of auxin accumulation and response in the cells that exit the root meristem bring about the regular left-right alternating pattern of lateral root development along the main root axis. AUX1, an auxin influx carrier, is essential for this left-right patterning in response to gravity; it transports auxin from cells exiting the root tip back to those still in the root tip. Cells between the growing tip and the meristem display an oscillatory responsiveness to auxin with a periodicity of 15 hours. The authors demonstrate that this peak in auxin responsiveness corresponds precisely with the formation of a lateral root. Thus cells are primed for root development while still in the root tip.
Auxin: putting down roots
Auxin: putting down roots. Development 15 February 2007; 134 (4): e401. 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.