The Maize Leaf: Another Perspective on Growth Regulation

The Arabidopsis thaliana root tip has been a key experimental system to study organ growth regulation. It has clear advantages for genetic, transcriptomic, and cell biological studies that focus on the control of cell division and expansion along its longitudinal axis. However, the system shows some limitations for methods that currently require too much tissue to perform them at subzonal resolution, including quantification of proteins, enzyme activity, hormone, and metabolite levels and cell wall extensibility. By contrast, the larger size of the maize leaf does allow such analyses. Here we highlight exciting new possibilities to advance mechanistic understanding of plant growth regulation by using the maize leaf as a complimentary system to the Arabidopsis root tip.

TrendsThe recent development of new molecular techniques led to opportunities to study organ growth regulation (through the effects on cell division and cell expansion) at different organizational levels.The Arabidopsis root tip is currently the best-studied model system in organ growth research, being particularly suitable for genetic, transcriptomic, and cell biology studies.The maize leaf growth zone offers unique possibilities for systems biology of organ growth at subzonal resolution, including measurements of metabolites, proteins, enzyme activities, and cell wall extensibility.