Highly differentiated tissues and organs play essential biological functions in multicellular organisms. Coordination of organ developmental process with tissue differentiation is necessary to achieve proper development of mature organs, but mechanisms for such coordination are not well understood. We used cotyledon margin cells from Arabidopsis plant as a new model system to investigate cell elongation and cell division during organ growth and found that margin cells endured a developmental phase transition from the “elongation” phase to the “elongation and division” phase at the early stage in germinating seedlings. We also discovered that the stem cell factors BARELY ANY MERISTEM 1 (BAM1) and WUSCHEL-related homeobox1 (WOX1) are involved in the regulation of margin cell developmental phase transition. Furthermore, exogenous auxin treatment (1 nanomolar,nM) promotes cell division, especially longitudinal cell division. This promotion of cell division did not occur in bam1 and wox1 mutants. Based on these findings, we hypothesized a new “moderate auxin concentration” model which emphasizes that a moderate auxin concentration is the key to triggering the developmental transition of meristematic cells.

Highly differentiated tissues and organs play essential biological functions in multicellular organisms. Coordination of organ developmental process with tissue differentiation is necessary to achieve proper development of mature organs, but mechanisms for such coordination is not well understood. We use cotyledon margin cells from Arabidopsis plant as a new model system to investigate cell elongation and cell division during organ growth, and found that margin cells endured developmental phase transition from the “elongation” phase to the “elongation and division” phase at the early stage in germinating seedlings. We also discovered that the stem cell factors BARELY ANY MERISTEM 1 (BAM1) and WUSCHEL-related homeobox1 (WOX1) are involved in the regulation of margin cell developmental phase transition. Furthermore, low concentration auxin promotes cell division, especially longitudinal cell division. This promotion of cell division is suppressed by BAM1 and WOX1. Based on these findings, we hypothesized a new “moderate auxin concentration” model which emphasizes that a moderate auxin concentration is the key to trigger developmental transition of meristematic cells.