Effective range of non-cell autonomous activator and inhibitor peptides specifying plant stomatal patterning

• DOI: 10.1242/dev.192237
• Publication Date: 2020-08-18T15:02:41Z
• Authors: Scott M. Zeng; Emily K. W. Lo; Bryna J. Hazelton; Miguel F. Morales; Keiko U. Torii
• Keywords: Epidermis (zoology)

Stomata are epidermal valves that facilitate gas exchange between plants and their environment. Stomatal patterning is regulated by EPIDERMAL PATTERING FACTOR (EPF)-family of secreted peptides: EPF1 enforcing stomatal spacing, whereas EPF-LIKE9, also known as Stomagen, promoting development. It remains unknown, however, how far these signaling peptides act. Utilizing Cre-lox recombination-based mosaic sectors overexpress either or Stomagen in Arabidopsis cotyledons, we reveal a range within the epidermis across cell layers which influence patterns. To quantitatively determine effective ranges, developed computational pipeline, SPACE (Stomata Patterning AutoCorrelation on Epidermis), describes probabilistic two-dimensional distributions based upon spatial autocorrelation statistics used Astrophysics. The analysis shows that, both act locally, inhibitor, EPF1, exerts longer-range effects than activator, Stomagen. Furthermore, local perturbation development has little global patterning. Our findings conclusively demonstrate nature extent EPF non-cell autonomous signals provide means to characterize complex patterns