A researcher at The University of Nottingham is part of an international team who have shown how dying cells at the tip of the root tell a plant where to form root branches.
Understanding how plant roots develop and grow is crucial to producing crops which make optimal use of water and nutrients and produce higher yields. Root branches are regularly spaced along the root of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and their formation is co-ordinated by the plant hormone auxin.
The study has revealed that synchronised bursts of programmed cell death in the root cap, a protective tissue surrounding the tip of the growing root, release pulses of auxin into the surrounding root tissues. These hormone pulses establish the rhythm for the formation of new lateral roots, and result in their regular spacing along the primary root.
The results have been published in the leading academic journal Science.
Dr Leah Band, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow based at the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology at the University of Nottingham, with joint affiliation to the School of Biosciences and the School of Mathematical Sciences, said: “It was great to be able to use mathematical modelling to investigate precisely how programmed cell death in the root tip relates to the patterning of new lateral roots. Mathematical modelling has great potential to help solve key plant science questions, which could ultimately help to feed the world.”
Leah Band is supported by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and a BBSRC New Investigator grant. The research was led by researchers at Department of Plant Systems Biology, VIB, Ghent, Belgium and Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Gent University, Belgium. The study involved collaborators at: Nanjing Agricultural University, China; Wageningen University, the Netherlands; and Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany.
Posted on Wednesday 27th January 2016