An epidermis-driven mechanism positions and scales stem cell niches in plants

• Published in: Science advances Vol. 2; no. 1; p. e1500989
• Main Authors: Gruel, Jérémy, Landrein, Benoit, Tarr, Paul, Schuster, Christoph, Refahi, Yassin, Sampathkumar, Arun, Hamant, Olivier, Meyerowitz, Elliot M, Jönsson, Henrik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 01.01.2016; American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Epidermis - cytology; Epidermis - metabolism; Flowers - metabolism; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Life Sciences; Meristem - genetics; Meristem - metabolism; Plant Physiological Phenomena; Plant Sciences; SciAdv r-articles; Signal Transduction; Stem Cell Niche; Stem Cells - cytology; Stem Cells - metabolism; Vegetal Biology; Arabidopsis thaliana; WUSCHEL; Computational Morphodynamics; CLAVATA3; Shoot apical meristem; Stem cells; feedback; homeostasis; differentiation; expression; growth; repression; arabidopsis shoot meristem; wuschel; apex
• ISSN: 2375-2548; 2375-2548
• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500989

How molecular patterning scales to organ size is highly debated in developmental biology. We explore this question for the characteristic gene expression domains of the plant stem cell niche residing in the shoot apical meristem. We show that a combination of signals originating from the epidermal cell layer can correctly pattern the key gene expression domains and notably leads to adaptive scaling of these domains to the size of the tissue. Using live imaging, we experimentally confirm this prediction. The identified mechanism is also sufficient to explain de novo stem cell niches in emerging flowers. Our findings suggest that the deformation of the tissue transposes meristem geometry into an instructive scaling and positional input for the apical plant stem cell niche.