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Reply to ‘Early shaping of a leaf’

Nature Plants volume 4, pages 620–621 (2018)Cite this article

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Feng et al. reply — Computational modelling has often been used to fill the gap between our understanding of the biophysical properties of cells and our observations of the organ shapes resulting from morphogenesis. In our recent study published in Nature Plants1, we used computational modelling to decipher how the observed biomechanical differences in various leaf primordia domains can explain the initial asymmetry in leaves1. Coen and Kennaway suggest that our modelling results are seemingly counter-intuitive2. Here, we would like to further elaborate on our model assumptions, and to emphasize the importance of epidermal-growth-control for understanding biological shape.

Using identical parameters but adding a fixed epidermal layer, we were able to obtain opposite results, that is, stiff cells have a faster growth rate (Fig. 1c). We also allowed the epidermal layer to expand from the tensile force exerted by the inner cells. From a physical viewpoint, increased expansion of the stiff inner cells in a semi-confined space occurs at the expense of reduced expansion of the soft cells, and the system would allow this to happen if expansion of the stiff cells could reduce the system’s potential energy more efficiently. In fact, the larger the ratio of λstiff/λsoft, the higher the growth rate reached by the stiff cells; where λ is the parameter that describes the resistance to deviation from the target area. To some extent, λ reflects cell wall stiffness. Other recent theoretical studies also highlighted the importance of epidermal restriction on plant organ shape4,5.

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Fig. 1: Simulation results under different constraints.

References

  1. Qi, J. et al. Nat. Plants 3, 724–733 (2017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China

    Shiliang Feng & Lüwen Zhou

  2. Key Laboratory of Microgravity (National Microgravity Laboratory), Center of Biomechanics and Bioengineering, and Beijing Key Laboratory of Engineered Construction and Mechanobiology, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Shiliang Feng, Lüwen Zhou, Shouqin Lü & Mian Long

  3. State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yuling Jiao

Authors
  1. Shiliang Feng
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  2. Lüwen Zhou
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  3. Shouqin Lü
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  4. Mian Long
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  5. Yuling Jiao
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mian Long or Yuling Jiao.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Responses to Coen technical comments.

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Feng, S., Zhou, L., Lü, S. et al. Reply to ‘Early shaping of a leaf’. Nature Plants 4, 620–621 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0243-5

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