Dolf Weijers (Wageningen University) and his German colleagues have discovered how stem cells in a plant embryo are formed. The cells communicate with one another via the transportation of a protein. The research results have been recently published in Nature (10 March 2010).

Unlike animals, plants produce new organs - leaves, roots and flowers - throughout their entire life. This task is undertaken by the meristems, growth tips in which stem cells are located. Meristems are located in the young plant embryo. Weijers studied the formation of root meristems in the embryo of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.The process begins with the programming of one cell as the 'hypophysis' which regulates stem cells in the roots. It is known that the formation of the hypophysis is controlled by the gene activator called Monopteros. However, it was hitherto unknown how this activator regulates hypophysis formation.

Weijers received a VIDI grant in 2006 from NWO for his research and a NPC grant (awarded to Prof. Dr. Sacco de Vries).

Pubication:
MONOPTEROS controls embryonic root initiation by regulating a mobile transcription factor, Schlereth, A.S., Möller, B., Liu, W., Flipse, J., Kientz, M., Rademacher, E.H., Schmid, M., Jürgens, G. and Weijers, D. (2010) . Nature, doi:10.1038/nature08836.