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Plant development

An axis of auxin

Nature volume 426, pages 132–135 (2003)Cite this article

Embryos have two distinct ends, which become apparent early on. Quite how this initial polarity is sustained in plant embryos has been unclear. Step forward the agent provocateur of plant development — auxin.

In multicellular organisms, different kinds of cell are specialized for different tasks — reproduction, say, or light perception. Clearly, the proper functioning of these organisms requires that the various cell types are positioned correctly relative to one another. Hence, common to the development of all multicellular organisms is the formation of axes along which the body plan is organized. Such axes are usually manifest very early in development, and indeed it is often impossible to identify an apolar stage1. This is certainly the case in many higher plants, including the experimental organism Arabidopsis thaliana, where a developmental decision that ultimately gives rise to a shoot at one end and a root at the other can be traced back to the first, asymmetric division of the fertilized egg cell2. But how is this initial asymmetry maintained and translated into the polar root–shoot axis? On page 147 of this issue3, Friml and co-workers strikingly demonstrate that such 'elaboration' depends on the movement to and fro of the plant hormone auxin.

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Figure 1: The basics of early Arabidopsis development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5YW, UK

    Stefan Kepinski & Ottoline Leyser

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  1. Stefan Kepinski
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  2. Ottoline Leyser
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Correspondence to Stefan Kepinski or Ottoline Leyser.

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Kepinski, S., Leyser, O. An axis of auxin. Nature 426, 132–135 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/426132b

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