Direct roles of SPEECHLESS in the specification of stomatal self-renewing cells

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1256888
• Publication Date: 2014-09-05T05:44:45Z
• Authors: On Sun Lau; Kelli A. Davies; Jessica Chang; Jessika Adrian; Matthew H. Rowe; Catherine E. Ball...; Dominique C. Berg...
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; Binding Sites; Arabidopsis Proteins; Arabidopsis; Cell Differentiation; Cell Communication; Adult Stem Cells; 03 medical and health sciences; Plant Growth Regulators; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Plant Stomata; Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors; Cell Lineage; Transcriptome; Cell Division; Genome, Plant

A complex network makes simple pores

Stomata, the pores found on the surface of plant leaves, form at intervals from stem cells. Development of stomata is controlled by the SPEECHLESS transcription factor. Lau et al. surveyed the genes that SPEECHLESS itself controls. Targets include genes involved in hormone signaling, control of cell proliferation, and the specification of asymmetric cell fates. Despite the apparent simplicity of a single pore, the genetic network that generates that pore is anything but simple.

Science , this issue p. 1605