1. A high-resolution gene expression atlas links dedicated meristem genes to key architectural traits
- Author
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Sunita Kumari, Robyn Johnston, Kokulapalan Wimalanathan, Marie Javelle, Xianran Li, Patrick S. Schnable, Robert B. Meeley, Marja C.P. Timmermans, Xiaoli Ma, Michael J. Scanlon, Carolyn J. Lawrence-Dill, Gary J. Muehlbauer, Jianming Yu, Doreen Ware, Samuel Leiboff, Steffen Knauer, and Lin Li
- Subjects
Meristem ,Arabidopsis ,Biology ,Genes, Plant ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ,Gene expression ,Genetics ,Gene family ,Gene ,Transcription factor ,Genetics (clinical) ,030304 developmental biology ,Regulation of gene expression ,0303 health sciences ,Research ,fungi ,food and beverages ,biology.organism_classification ,Evolutionary biology ,Subfunctionalization ,Databases, Nucleic Acid ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
The shoot apical meristem (SAM) orchestrates the balance between stem cell proliferation and organ initiation essential for postembryonic shoot growth. Meristems show a striking diversity in shape and size. How this morphological diversity relates to variation in plant architecture and the molecular circuitries driving it are unclear. By generating a high-resolution gene expression atlas of the vegetative maize shoot apex, we show here that distinct sets of genes govern the regulation and identity of stem cells in maize versus Arabidopsis. Cell identities in the maize SAM reflect the combinatorial activity of transcription factors (TFs) that drive the preferential, differential expression of individual members within gene families functioning in a plethora of cellular processes. Subfunctionalization thus emerges as a fundamental feature underlying cell identity. Moreover, we show that adult plant characters are, to a significant degree, regulated by gene circuitries acting in the SAM, with natural variation modulating agronomically important architectural traits enriched specifically near dynamically expressed SAM genes and the TFs that regulate them. Besides unique mechanisms of maize stem cell regulation, our atlas thus identifies key new targets for crop improvement.
- Published
- 2019