Session 4: Development III - Post-embryonic

Chair: Maarten Koornneef, Agricultural University, Wageningen


This session focused on meristems in the shoots and roots. Kathy Barton (Madison) described the shoot meristem less (STM) gene, which appeared to be a homologue of the maize KNOTTED homeobox gene. This gene has an expression pattern extremely specific for cells that will become meristems or are undifferentiated shoot meristem cells.

Root development has become a mature field of research in Arabidopsis. Elegant cell-faith and laser ablation studies (by Scheres, Utrecht) and well described mutants some of them affected in specific cell layers of the roots (Di Laurenzio and Benfey, New York), have been important tools in the understanding of this important plant structure.

The development of leaf primordia was studied by Pickett (Eugene) with temperature sensitive mutants. C. Bellinni reported on new seedling mutants studied at the INRA in Versailles. Some of these mutants seem to be affected in the cytokinin response.