First published online March 15, 2004
Development 131, 701e (2004)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
Plant talk
Body and organ size in multicellular organisms is governed by intrinsic
mechanisms that coordinate cell size and number during development. On
p. 1491, Torii and
co-workers describe how three related receptor-like kinases interact
synergistically to link cell proliferation to organ growth and flower
development in Arabidopsis. Plants that lack ERECTA, a leucine-rich
receptor-like serine/threonine kinase, have compact influorescences and short
lateral organs, which indicates that ERECTA mediates cell-cell signals that
coordinate organ growth. However, a dominant-negative fragment of ERECTA has
previously been shown to enhance the phenotype of null erecta plants,
so there may be redundancy in the ERECTA signalling pathway. Torii and
colleagues now identify two paralogous ERECTA-like receptors – ERL1 and
ERL2. erl1 and erl2 mutations alone had no detectable
phenotype but each enhanced the defects seen in erecta plants; loss
of all three genes severely reduced cell proliferation, resulting in extreme
dwarfism and abnormal flower development.
Related articles in Development:
- Synergistic interaction of three ERECTA-family receptor-like kinases controls Arabidopsis organ growth and flower development by promoting cell proliferation
- Elena D. Shpak, Chris T. Berthiaume, Emi J. Hill, and Keiko U. Torii
Development 2004 131: 1491-1501.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
