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Updated: Jan 3, 2026

Isolation and Transcriptome Analysis of Plant Cell Types
Published on: April 7, 2023
Transcriptional circuits in control of shoot stem cell homeostasis
Han Han1, Xing Liu2, Yun Zhou1
1Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States; Purdue Center for Plant Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States.
Abstract:
Plant shoot apical meristems (SAMs) play essential roles in plant growth and development. Located at the growing tip of a plant stem, these dome-like structures contain stem cells, which serve to perpetuate themselves in an undifferentiated state while continually adding new cells that differentiate and eventually form all above-ground tissues. In a SAM, the pool of stem cells is dynamically maintained through a balance between cell division (self-renewal) and differentiation (loss of stem-cell identity). In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a negative feedback loop between WUSCHEL (WUS) and the CLAVATA3 (CLV3) plays important roles in maintaining the stem cell population. In this review, we highlight recent findings mainly from studies in Arabidopsis, and summarize the research progress on understanding how multiple transcriptional circuits integrate and function at different cell layers to control the WUS-CLV3 loop and stem cell homeostasis.
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