In multicellular organisms, morphogenesis relies on a strict coordination in time and space of cell proliferation and differentiation. In contrast to animals, plant development displays continuous organ formation and adaptive growth responses during their lifespan relying on a tight coordination of cell proliferation. How developmental signals interact with the plant cell-cycle machinery is largely unknown. Here, we characterize plant A2-type cyclins, a small gene family of mitotic cyclins, and show how they contribute to the fine-tuning of local proliferation during plant development. Moreover, the timely repression of CYCA2;3 expression in newly formed guard cells is shown to require the stomatal transcription factors FOUR LIPS/MYB124 and MYB88, providing a direct link between developmental programming and cell-cycle exit in plants. Thus, transcriptional downregulation of CYCA2s represents a critical mechanism to coordinate proliferation during plant development.
Steffen Vanneste1,2,7, Frederik Coppens1,2,7, EunKyoung Lee3, Tyler J Donner4, Zidian Xie5, Gert Van Isterdael1,2, Stijn Dhondt1,2, Freya De Winter1,2, Bert De Rybel1,2,8, Marnik Vuylsteke1,2, Lieven De Veylder1,2, Jiří Friml1,2, Dirk Inzé1,2, Erich Grotewold5, Enrico Scarpella4, Fred Sack3, Gerrit T S Beemster1,2,6 and Tom Beeckman1,2
The EMBO Journal (2011) 30, 3430 – 3441. Full paper here.