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EMBRYONIC ROOT DEVELOPMENT

A dialogue between generations

Nature Plants volume 8, pages 607–608 (2022)Cite this article

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Arabidopsis embryonic root development involves the formation of distinct cell types and tissues in a tightly regulated and thereby highly predictable spatio-temporal manner. A crosstalk between maternal and embryonic genes orchestrates division orientation and fate specification to control root development.

Seed plants cannot move their progeny out of harm, as they support the next-generation embryos inside their inflorescences before seed maturation. Nevertheless, organ development during embryogenesis is mostly considered unconnected to the previous generation. During Arabidopsis thaliana embryogenesis, the primary root is initiated by the specification of the apical suspensor cell into the root founder cell, the hypophysis. This cell divides asymmetrically to generate the quiescent centre, which is the organizer of the post-embryonic root meristem. Simultaneously, the apical adjacent cells specify into the precursors for the vasculature, ground tissue and epidermis, thereby forming an early version of a root meristem1. In this issue of Nature Plants, Du et al. show that regular root formation is controlled by the opposing functions of maternal and embryonic WIP genes to steer cell division orientation and cell fate specification in Arabidopsis2.

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Fig. 1: Spatially expressed WIP genes control embryonic root development.

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  1. Plant Science Department, Plant Developmental Biology Group, Wageningen University Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Jana Wittmer & Renze Heidstra

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  1. Jana Wittmer
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  2. Renze Heidstra
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Correspondence to Jana Wittmer or Renze Heidstra.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Wittmer, J., Heidstra, R. A dialogue between generations. Nat. Plants 8, 607–608 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01174-2

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