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Updated: Sep 1, 2026

Lateral Root Inducible System in Arabidopsis and Maize
Published on: January 15, 2016
Additional vegetative growth in maize reflects expansion of fates in preexisting tissue, not additional divisions by
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242, USA.
Abstract:
The maize shoot is usually determinate: the apical meristem produces a fixed number of vegetative nodes before it switches to tassel development. Culturing maize meristems, however, delays their determinacy. Cultured meristems may form up to twice the usual number of vegetative nodes. Clonal analysis of the "extra" vegetative nodes reveals that these nodes are the product of conversion, roughly equivalent to a homoeotic transformation, of tissue that otherwise would form the base of the tassel. Altered activity of the apical initials does not generate the extra vegetative growth. The conserved, stereotypical activity of the apical initials even in the face of radically prolonged vegetative growth suggests that apical initials in this annual grass may acquire a highly restricted fate (presporogenous tissue) early in embryogenesis.
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