Abstract

The genetic basis of early plant development has proved challenging to dissect: the cells of interest are surrounded by tissue and therefore hard to get at, and functional redundancy makes it hard to link genotypes to phenotypes. A recent study has overcome these problems to provide important new insights into early Arabidopsis thaliana embryogenesis, showing that setting up the main body axis involves the differential expression of WUSCHEL-related homeobox (WOX) family genes.