|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
| Home Help Feedback Subscriptions Archive Search Table of Contents | ||||
Development, Vol 120, Issue 5 1163-1168, Copyright © 1994 by Company of Biologists
JOURNAL ARTICLES |
F. Meins Jr and M. Seldran
Cells cultured from explants of tobacco leaf require exogenous cell-division factors such as the cytokinin kinetin for sustained proliferation. When cytokinin-requiring (C-) cells are cultured on medium containing 1/100 the optimum cytokinin concen tration they rapidly give rise to cytokinin-autotrophic (C+) variants. Some of these variants result from a meiotically transmitted change at the Habituated leaf-2 locus. We measured the rate of phenotypic variation by a simple, quantitative method and found that cultured tobacco cells alternate between the C- and C+ states at extremely high rates of approx. 10-2 per cell generation, which is 102- to 103-fold more rapid than most somatic mutations in tobacco. These changes are so rapid that the cla ssical distinction between random and induced events is blurred. Selection of alternate phenotypes arising by rapid, reversible cellular variation results in changes that appear to be directed at the tissue level. This phenomenon, called pseudodirected variation, is of particular interest because it suggests novel stochastic mechanisms of cytokinin action and a plausible explanation for the directed, but plastic nature of development in plants.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  M. S. Pischke, E. L. Huttlin, A. D. Hegeman, and M. R. Sussman A Transcriptome-Based Characterization of Habituation in Plant Tissue Culture Plant Physiology, April 1, 2006; 140(4): 1255 - 1278. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 F. Meins Jr and M. Thomas Meiotic transmission of epigenetic changes in the cell-division factor requirement of plant cells Development, December 22, 2003; 130(25): 6201 - 6208. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
