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Role of PHABULOSA and PHAVOLUTA in determining radial patterning in shoots

Nature volume 411, pages 709–713 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The upper side of the angiosperm leaf is specialized for efficient capture of sunlight whereas the lower side is specialized for gas exchange. In Arabidopsis, the establishment of polarity in the leaf probably requires the generation and perception of positional information along the radial (adaxial versus abaxial or central versus peripheral) dimension of the plant. This is because the future upper (adaxial) side of the leaf develops from cells closer to the centre of the shoot, whereas the future under (abaxial) side develops from cells located more peripherally. Here we implicate the Arabidopsis PHABULOSA and PHAVOLUTA genes in the perception of radial positional information in the leaf primordium. Dominant phabulosa (phb)1 and phavoluta (phv) mutations cause a dramatic transformation of abaxial leaf fates into adaxial leaf fates. They do so by altering the predicted sterol/lipid-binding domains of ATHB14 and ATHB9, proteins of previously unknown function that also contain DNA-binding motifs. This change probably renders the protein constitutively active, implicating this domain as a central regulator of protein function and the PHB and PHV proteins as receptors for an adaxializing signal.

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Figure 1: Development of adaxial and abaxial leaf domains.
Figure 2: Dominant phb and phv mutations alter the START domain.
Figure 3: PHB expression in wild-type and phb-1d SAMs.
Figure 4: Expression of PHB in embryos.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank M. Evans and K. Lynn for comments on the manuscript and A. Hamilton, A. Derr and B. Bordini for technical assistance. This work was supported by grants from the Beckman Foundation, NSF and the USDA.

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Author notes

  1. Jane R. McConnell

    Present address: Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics,

    Jane R. McConnell, Ning Bao & M. Kathryn Barton

  2. Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology,

    Jane R. McConnell

  3. Program in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 445 Henry Mall, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Ning Bao

  4. Section of Plant Biology, University of California–Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, 95616, California, USA

    John Emery, Yuval Eshed & John Bowman

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  1. Jane R. McConnell
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Correspondence to M. Kathryn Barton.

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McConnell, J., Emery, J., Eshed, Y. et al. Role of PHABULOSA and PHAVOLUTA in determining radial patterning in shoots. Nature 411, 709–713 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35079635

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