This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
Radial patterning is a fundamental process in the development of all plants. Roots, stems, and flowers exhibit a radial pattern of organization, and this pattern is formed in the early embryo. The goal of this project is to understand how plant tissues become organized as concentric layers of cells. Since the generation of layers of cells is expected to require communication between cells, mutants in receptors would be predicted to affect radial pattern in embryos, when layers of cells are first established. Double mutants for two receptors in the model plant Arabidopsis were found to change outer cell types to inner cell types in the embryo. In this project, the hypothesis that the outer layer of the embryo acts as an organizer and regulates the identity of inner layers will be tested. Using genetic and biochemical approaches, candidate signals for these receptors and proteins that these receptors act on will be characterized. This project will provide a framework for understanding the signaling mechanisms responsible for radial patterning in plants, which is currently not well understood. The results from this project can be applied to regulating important traits such as stem size, root growth and male sterility in crop plants. This project will contribute to the training of graduate students, undergraduates and high school students and teachers in plant development, genetics and genomics. A teacher will be recruited the first summer to develop a plant genetics or genomics-based unit, will implement the unit during the school year, and refine it during a second summer.
