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Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Live Cell Imaging of Microtubule Cytoskeleton and Micromechanical Manipulation of the Arabidopsis Shoot Apical Meristem
Published on: May 23, 2020
The rice flattened shoot meristem, encoding CAF-1 p150 subunit, is required for meristem maintenance by regulating
Masashi Abe1, Hideaki Kuroshita, Masaaki Umeda
1Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan.
Abstract:
We isolated flattened shoot meristem (fsm) mutants in rice that showed defective seedling growth and died in the vegetative phase. Since most fsm plants had flat and small shoot apical meristems (SAMs), we suggest that FSM is required for proper SAM maintenance. FSM encodes a putative ortholog of Arabidopsis FASCIATA1 (FAS1) that corresponds to the p150 subunit of chromatin assembly factor-1 (CAF-1). FSM is expressed patchily in tissues with actively dividing cells, suggesting a tight association of FSM with specific cell-cycle phases. Double-target in situ hybridization counterstained with cell-cycle marker genes revealed that FSM is expressed mainly in the G(1) phase. In fsm, expressions of the two marker genes representing S- and G(2)- to M-phases were enhanced in SAM, despite a reduced number of cells in SAM, suggesting that S- and G(2)-phases are prolonged in fsm. In addition, developmental events in fsm leaves took place at the proper time, indicating that the temporal regulation of development occurs independently of the cell-cycle period. In contrast to the fasciated phenotype of Arabidopsis fas1, fsm showed size reduction of SAM. The opposite phenotypes between fsm and fas1 indicate that the SAM maintenance is regulated differently between rice and Arabidopsis.
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