Contact: Gina Kirchweger
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Salk Institute

Root Or Shoot? Ear Calls The Shots

Caption: The lens shaped cell (shown in green) at the base of the plant embryo (shown in red) will go on to form the center of the root meristem -- the actively dividing cell tissue at the tips of roots. It fluoresces green in response to auxin, which governs root development (far left). Embryos with a mutation in the TOPLESS gene still respond normally to auxin (second from left), while embryos without a functional version of BODENLOS cannot respond to auxin and as a result fail to develop roots (second from right). Combining both mutations restores the auxin response as well as root development (far right).

Credit: Images: Courtesy of Dr. Jeffrey Long, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

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Related news release: Root or shoot? EAR calls the shots