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Updated: Dec 19, 2025

Lateral Root Inducible System in Arabidopsis and Maize

Lateral Root Inducible System in Arabidopsis and Maize

Published on: January 14, 2016

Pericyclic versus Endodermal Lateral Roots: Which Came First?

Steffen Vanneste¹, Tom Beeckman²

¹Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, 9052 Ghent, Belgium; Center for Plant Systems Biology, VIB, 9052 Ghent, Belgium; Lab of Plant Growth Analysis, Ghent University Global Campus, Incheon 21985, Republic of Korea.

Trends in Plant Science

|June 9, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The pericycle, not the endodermis, is the ancestral tissue for lateral root formation in early vascular plants. This finding challenges long-held assumptions about plant evolution and development.

Keywords:

endodermis evolution lateral root pericycle

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Area of Science:

Plant evolutionary developmental biology
Vascular plant anatomy and morphology

Background:

Lateral roots (LRs) are crucial for plant anchorage and nutrient uptake.
The developmental origin of LRs in early vascular plants remains debated.
Previous hypotheses suggested the endodermis as the ancestral tissue for LR formation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the ancestral tissue responsible for lateral root (LR) formation in early vascular plants.
To resolve the long-standing debate regarding the evolutionary origin of LRs.

Main Methods:

Comparative analysis of existing literature on LR formation across early vascular plant lineages.
Phylogenetic reconstruction of tissue recruitment for LR initiation.

Main Results:

Evidence suggests the pericycle, a layer surrounding the vascular tissue, was the ancestral tissue for LR initiation.
The endodermis is unlikely to be the ancestral tissue for LR formation in vascular plants.

Conclusions:

The pericycle, not the endodermis, represents the evolutionarily ancestral tissue for lateral root formation.
This discovery reframes our understanding of fundamental developmental processes in early vascular plant evolution.