Plant embryogenesis articles within Nature

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• Letter | 12 December 2018

  A male-expressed rice embryogenic trigger redirected for asexual propagation through seeds

  Misexpression of the sperm-cell-expressed transcription factor BABY BOOM1 in the rice egg cell induces embryo development without fertilization, establishing the feasibility of asexual reproduction in crops and potentially enabling the clonal propagation of hybrids through seeds.

  • Imtiyaz Khanday
  • , Debra Skinner
  •  & Venkatesan Sundaresan

• Letter | 07 September 2014

  Non-equivalent contributions of maternal and paternal genomes to early plant embryogenesis

  A functional assessment of paternal gene activation in Arabidopsis confirms that paternal genome activation does not occur in one early discrete step, shows that maternal and paternal genomes do not make equivalent contributions to early plant embryogenesis, and uncovers an unexpectedly large effect of hybrid genetic background on paternal gene activity.

  • Gerardo Del Toro-De León
  • , Marcelina García-Aguilar
  •  & C. Stewart Gillmor

• Letter | 05 September 2012

  A transcriptomic hourglass in plant embryogenesis

  As it develops from a single-celled zygote to a mature plant embryo, the thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana passes through a stage during which phylogenetically very ancient genes are preferentially expressed, showing that animals and plants have independently acquired the developmental hourglass as a similar way of managing gene expression as they pass through embryogenesis, even though their morphological development is very different.

  • Marcel Quint
  • , Hajk-Georg Drost
  •  & Ivo Grosse

• Letter | 22 January 2012

  Maternal and paternal genomes contribute equally to the transcriptome of early plant embryos

  Transcriptome sequencing and analysis of hybrid embryos show that in contrast to early animal embryogenesis, early plant embryogenesis is mostly under zygotic control.

  • Michael D. Nodine
  •  & David P. Bartel

• Letter | 10 March 2010

  MONOPTEROS controls embryonic root initiation by regulating a mobile transcription factor

  During Arabidopsis embryogenesis, a single cell is specified to become the founder cell of the root meristem — the hypophysis — in response to signals from adjacent cells. Hypophysis specification requires an auxin-responsive transcription factor, MONOPTEROS (MP), which promotes transport of auxin from the embryo to the hypophysis precursor. Here, MP target genes are identified and the means by which they mediate root formation is shown.

  • Alexandra Schlereth
  • , Barbara Möller
  •  & Dolf Weijers

• Letter | 28 February 2010

  Control of Arabidopsis apical–basal embryo polarity by antagonistic transcription factors

  During development in Arabidopsis plants, populations of shoot stem cells and root stem cells are established at the embryo's apical and basal poles, respectively. PLETHORA genes are master regulators of root fate, but the regulators of shoot fate were unknown. Here, CLASS III HOMEODOMAIN-LEUCINE ZIPPER genes are identified as master regulators of apical/shoot fate, and are shown to be sufficient to convert the embryonic root pole into a second shoot pole.

  • Zachery R. Smith
  •  & Jeff A. Long