More growth at the edges than the center of leaves makes them curly.

Coen/AAAS

Enrico Coen (John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK) is seeing the shape of things to come. In two recent papers, he addresses how cell growth influences the shape of plant organs.

The first article, by Utpal Nath, Coen, and colleagues, looks at a quality of leaves often taken for granted—flatness. “Flatness is not a natural outcome of growth,” says Coen. “An organism has to coordinate lots of things to keep leaves flat.” According to the group's results, part of this coordination is accomplished by a transcription factor called CIN. The authors identified mutant snapdragon plants that lacked CIN and, consequently, had curly, crinkly leaves rather than their normally flat leaves.

The curvature occurred because the edges grew more than the center of cin mutant leaves. In several plant species, a wave of...

The Rockefeller University Press
2003
The Rockefeller University Press
2003
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