Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Of puzzles and pavements: a quantitative exploration of leaf epidermal cell shape

Róza V. Vőfély, View ORCID ProfileJoseph Gallagher, Grace D. Pisano, View ORCID ProfileMadelaine Bartlett, View ORCID ProfileSiobhan A. Braybrook
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/361717
Róza V. Vőfély
1The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Joseph Gallagher
2Department of Biology, UMass Amherst
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Joseph Gallagher
Grace D. Pisano
2Department of Biology, UMass Amherst
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Madelaine Bartlett
2Department of Biology, UMass Amherst
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Madelaine Bartlett
  • For correspondence: siobhanb@ucla.edu mbartlett@cns.umass.edu
Siobhan A. Braybrook
1The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge
3Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, UCLA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Siobhan A. Braybrook
  • For correspondence: siobhanb@ucla.edu mbartlett@cns.umass.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Summary The epidermal cells of leaves lend themselves readily to observation and display many shapes and types: tabular pavement cells, complex trichomes, and stomatal complexes1. Pavement cells from Zea mays (maize) and Arabidopsis thaliana (arabidopsis) both have highly undulate anticlinal walls and are held as representative of monocots and eudicots, respectively. In these two model species, we have a nuanced understanding of the molecular mechanisms that generate undulating pavement cell shape2–9. This model-system dominance has led to two common assumptions: first, that particular plant lineages are characterized by particular pavement cell shapes; and second, that undulatory pavement cell shapes are common enough to be model shapes. To test these assumptions, we quantified pavement cell shape in the leaves of 278 vascular plant taxa and assessed cell shape metrics across large taxonomic groups. We settled on two metrics that described cell shape diversity well in this dataset: aspect ratio (degree of cell elongation) and solidity (a proxy for margin undulation). We found that pavement cells in the monocots tended to have weakly undulating margins, pavement cells in ferns had strongly undulating margins, and pavement cells in the eudicots showed no particular degree of undulation. Indeed, we found that cells with strongly undulating margins, like those of arabidopsis and maize, were in the minority in seed plants. At the organ level, we found a trend towards cells with more undulating margins on the abaxial leaf surface vs. the adaxial surface. We also detected a correlation between cell and leaf aspect ratio: highly elongated leaves tended to have highly elongated cells (low aspect ratio), but not in the eudicots. This indicates that while plant anatomy and plant morphology can be connected, superficially similar leaves can develop through very different underlying growth dynamics (cell expansion and division patterns). This work reveals the striking diversity of pavement cell shapes across vascular plants, and lays the quantitative groundwork for testing hypotheses about pavement cell form and function.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted July 03, 2018.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Of puzzles and pavements: a quantitative exploration of leaf epidermal cell shape
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Of puzzles and pavements: a quantitative exploration of leaf epidermal cell shape
Róza V. Vőfély, Joseph Gallagher, Grace D. Pisano, Madelaine Bartlett, Siobhan A. Braybrook
bioRxiv 361717; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/361717
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Of puzzles and pavements: a quantitative exploration of leaf epidermal cell shape
Róza V. Vőfély, Joseph Gallagher, Grace D. Pisano, Madelaine Bartlett, Siobhan A. Braybrook
bioRxiv 361717; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/361717

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Plant Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3504)
  • Biochemistry (7346)
  • Bioengineering (5321)
  • Bioinformatics (20259)
  • Biophysics (10013)
  • Cancer Biology (7742)
  • Cell Biology (11298)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6437)
  • Ecology (9950)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13318)
  • Genetics (9360)
  • Genomics (12581)
  • Immunology (7700)
  • Microbiology (19016)
  • Molecular Biology (7439)
  • Neuroscience (41029)
  • Paleontology (300)
  • Pathology (1229)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2135)
  • Physiology (3157)
  • Plant Biology (6860)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1272)
  • Synthetic Biology (1895)
  • Systems Biology (5311)
  • Zoology (1089)