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Spatiotemporal relationships between growth and microtubule orientation as revealed in living root cells of Arabidopsis thaliana transformed with green-fluorescent-protein gene construct GFP-MBDArabidopsis thaliana plants were transformed with GFP-MBD (J. Marc et al., Plant Cell 10: 1927-1939, 1998) under the control of a constitutive (35S) or copper-inducible promoter. GFP-specific fluorescence distributions, levels, and persistence were determined and found to vary with age, tissue type, transgenic line, and individual plant. With the exception of an increased frequency of abnormal roots of 35S GFP-MBD plants grown on kanamycin-containing media, expression of GFP-MBD does not appear to affect plant phenotype. The number of leaves, branches, bolts, and siliques as well as overall height, leaf size, and seed set are similar between wild-type and transgenic plants as is the rate of root growth. Thus, we conclude that the transgenic plants can serve as a living model system in which the dynamic behavior of microtubules can be visualized. Confocal microscopy was used to simultaneously monitor growth and microtubule behavior within individual cells as they passed through the elongation zone of the Arabidopsis root. Generally, microtubules reoriented from transverse to oblique or longitudinal orientations as growth declined. Microtubule reorientation initiated at the ends of the cell did not necessarily occur simultaneously in adjacent neighboring cells and did not involve complete disintegration and repolymerization of microtubule arrays. Although growth rates correlated with microtubule reorientation, the two processes were not tightly coupled in terms of their temporal relationships, suggesting that other factor(s) may be involved in regulating both events. Additionally, microtubule orientation was more defined in cells whose growth was accelerating and less stringent in cells whose growth was decelerating, indicating that microtubule-orienting factor(s) may be sensitive to growth acceleration, rather than growth per se.
Document ID
20040088611
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Granger, C. L.
(University Park PA 16802, United States)
Cyr, R. J.
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2001
Publication Information
Publication: Protoplasma
Volume: 216
Issue: 3-4
ISSN: 0033-183X
Subject Category
Life Sciences (General)
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
NASA Discipline Plant Biology
Non-NASA Center

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