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Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals?
Mechanical stress in tree roots induces the production of reaction wood (RW) and the formation of new branch roots, both functioning to avoid anchorage failure and limb damage. The vascular cambium (VC) is the factor responsible for the onset of these responses as shown by their occurrence when all...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8533771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34685524 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10102544 |
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author | Chiatante, Donato Montagnoli, Antonio Trupiano, Dalila Sferra, Gabriella Bryant, John Rost, Thomas L. Scippa, Gabriella S. |
author_facet | Chiatante, Donato Montagnoli, Antonio Trupiano, Dalila Sferra, Gabriella Bryant, John Rost, Thomas L. Scippa, Gabriella S. |
author_sort | Chiatante, Donato |
collection | PubMed |
description | Mechanical stress in tree roots induces the production of reaction wood (RW) and the formation of new branch roots, both functioning to avoid anchorage failure and limb damage. The vascular cambium (VC) is the factor responsible for the onset of these responses as shown by their occurrence when all primary tissues and the root tips are removed. The data presented confirm that the VC is able to evaluate both the direction and magnitude of the mechanical forces experienced before coordinating the most fitting responses along the root axis whenever and wherever these are necessary. The coordination of these responses requires intense crosstalk between meristematic cells of the VC which may be very distant from the place where the mechanical stress is first detected. Signaling could be facilitated through plasmodesmata between meristematic cells. The mechanism of RW production also seems to be well conserved in the stem and this fact suggests that the VC could behave as a single structure spread along the plant body axis as a means to control the relationship between the plant and its environment. The observation that there are numerous morphological and functional similarities between different meristems and that some important regulatory mechanisms of meristem activity, such as homeostasis, are common to several meristems, supports the hypothesis that not only the VC but all apical, primary and secondary meristems present in the plant body behave as a single interconnected structure. We propose to name this structure “meristematic connectome” given the possibility that the sequence of meristems from root apex to shoot apex could represent a pluricellular network that facilitates long-distance signaling in the plant body. The possibility that the “meristematic connectome” could act as a single structure active in adjusting the plant body to its surrounding environment throughout the life of a plant is now proposed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8533771 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85337712021-10-23 Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? Chiatante, Donato Montagnoli, Antonio Trupiano, Dalila Sferra, Gabriella Bryant, John Rost, Thomas L. Scippa, Gabriella S. Cells Hypothesis Mechanical stress in tree roots induces the production of reaction wood (RW) and the formation of new branch roots, both functioning to avoid anchorage failure and limb damage. The vascular cambium (VC) is the factor responsible for the onset of these responses as shown by their occurrence when all primary tissues and the root tips are removed. The data presented confirm that the VC is able to evaluate both the direction and magnitude of the mechanical forces experienced before coordinating the most fitting responses along the root axis whenever and wherever these are necessary. The coordination of these responses requires intense crosstalk between meristematic cells of the VC which may be very distant from the place where the mechanical stress is first detected. Signaling could be facilitated through plasmodesmata between meristematic cells. The mechanism of RW production also seems to be well conserved in the stem and this fact suggests that the VC could behave as a single structure spread along the plant body axis as a means to control the relationship between the plant and its environment. The observation that there are numerous morphological and functional similarities between different meristems and that some important regulatory mechanisms of meristem activity, such as homeostasis, are common to several meristems, supports the hypothesis that not only the VC but all apical, primary and secondary meristems present in the plant body behave as a single interconnected structure. We propose to name this structure “meristematic connectome” given the possibility that the sequence of meristems from root apex to shoot apex could represent a pluricellular network that facilitates long-distance signaling in the plant body. The possibility that the “meristematic connectome” could act as a single structure active in adjusting the plant body to its surrounding environment throughout the life of a plant is now proposed. MDPI 2021-09-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8533771/ /pubmed/34685524 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10102544 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Hypothesis Chiatante, Donato Montagnoli, Antonio Trupiano, Dalila Sferra, Gabriella Bryant, John Rost, Thomas L. Scippa, Gabriella S. Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? |
title | Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? |
title_full | Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? |
title_fullStr | Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? |
title_full_unstemmed | Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? |
title_short | Meristematic Connectome: A Cellular Coordinator of Plant Responses to Environmental Signals? |
title_sort | meristematic connectome: a cellular coordinator of plant responses to environmental signals? |
topic | Hypothesis |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8533771/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34685524 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10102544 |
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