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Root apex of Arabidopsis thaliana Consists of Four Distinct Zones of Growth Activities: Meristematic Zone, Transition Zone, Fast Elongation Zone, and Growth Terminating Zone
Jean-Pierre Verbelen, Tinne De Cnodder, Jie Le, Kris Vissenberg and Frantisek Baluska
volume 1 | issue 6
november/december 2006Pages: 296 - 304
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In the growing apex of Arabidopsis thaliana primary roots, cells proceed through four distinct phases of cellular activities. These zones and their boundaries can be well defined based on their characteristic cellular activities. The meristematic zone comprises, and is limited to, all cells that undergo mitotic divisions. Detailed in vivo analysis of transgenic lines reveals that, in the Columbia-0 ecotype, meristem stretches up to 200 µm away from the junction between root and root cap (RCJ). In the transition zone, 200 to about 520 µm away from the RCJ, cells undergo physiological changes as they prepare for their fast elongation. Upon entering the transition zone, they progressively develop a central vacuole, polarize the cytoskeleton and remodel their cell walls. Cells grow slowly during this transition: it takes ten hours to triplicate cell length from 8.5 to about 35 µm in the trichoblast cell files. In the fast elongation zone, which covers the zone from 520 to about 850 µm from the RCJ, cell length quadruplicates to about 140 µm in only two hours. This is accompanied by drastic and specific cell wall alterations. Finally, root hairs fully develop in the growth terminating zone, where root cells undergo a minor elongation to reach their mature lengths.
Authors
Jean-Pierre Verbelen
University of Antwerp, Biology Department; Wilrijk, Belgium
Tinne De Cnodder
University of Antwerp, Biology Department; Wilrijk, Belgium
Jie Le
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Kris Vissenberg
University of Antwerp, Biology Department; Wilrijk, Belgium
Frantisek Baluska
University of Bonn, Institute of Cell and Molecular Botany; Bonn, Germany
We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
Download PDF If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.