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As the growing tip of each shoot in a plant is a shoot apical meristem, a collection of a few hundred cells that are maintained as a population of stem cells through the growth period of the shoot, and that provide the cells that will become leaves, flowers, and stem. The meristem also defines the geometric pattern in which leaves and flowers arise (the phyllotactic pattern). How does it do this? Part of the answer is that the meristem, though simple-appearing in the microscope, consists of a number of different cell types that are interchangeable, and dynamically signaling to one another as the shoot grows. The genetic evidence for cell-cell communication in Arabidopsis thaliana shoot apical meristems will be presented, as will time-lapse microscope views of meristematic dynamics. Computational models of meristem cell interactions will also be shown, to demonstrate the need for computational approaches to complex networks of interconnected cells.
Dr. Meyerowitz is the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. |
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