How small RNAs craft a world of leaf shapes: This series of simulations examines a leaf section to re-veal how minor variations in gene interactions can lead to distinct spatial patterns of gene activity. These differences between the top (red) and bottom (blue) parts may determine the ultimate shape of the leaf. Left: Illustrates a typical flat leaf maintaining a stable bipolar gene activity pattern. Center: Shows a leaf with a shifted polarity, resulting in a structure akin to that seen in the specialized morphology of carnivorous plants. Right: Displays a loss of polarity, where a radial gene activity pattern contributes to the formation of tendril-like features, common in climbing plants.
Plant leaves need a large surface area to capture sunlight for photosynthesis. Dr. Emanuele Scacchi and Professor Marja Timmermans from the Center for Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Tübingen, together with an international team, have now discovered which genetic mechanisms control leaves’ growth into a flat structure capable of efficiently capturing sunlight. A kind of built-in GPS informs each cell about its relative position in the growing leaf. The order corresponds to a biological concept of self-organization predicted by the famous mathematician Alan Turing.
"When cells divide and multiply, the result is usually a clump of cells. We wanted to know how, in the case of a leaf, cell division leads to a large flat area," says Scacchi. ...
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