Cloning the Shootless Locus of Arabidopsis Thaliana

植物分生组织位于生长的根和茎的顶端。它们由密集的细胞质、未分化、分裂的细胞组成。这些细胞具有“干细胞”的特性，因为它们的后代不仅能分化出更多未分化的分生组织细胞，还能分化成组成植物体内的多种不同类型的细胞。因此，了解顶端分生组织是如何工作的，不仅对了解植物的发育至关重要，而且还将有助于揭示更普遍的问题，即未分化的“干细胞”群体如何产生由许多不同细胞类型组成的复杂结构。这位新的研究者提议鉴定、分离和鉴定编码拟南芥SHOOTLESS基因座的野生型DNA克隆。这项研究可能的实际应用包括更精确地控制不定芽再生的能力。到目前为止的数据表明，SHOTLESS基因是形成茎顶端分生组织所必需的。这是可能的，除了对芽分生组织的形成是必要的，SHOTLESS产品也是足够的芽分生组织形成。如果这是真的，SHOOTLESS产物表达的增加将增加给定组织再生芽的可能性。学习如何控制这样的基因将导致从组织或物种再生芽的能力增强，否则这些组织或物种就不能再生芽了。这将加速培育具有重要商业价值的植物新品种。

Plant meristems are located at the tips of growing roots and shoots. They are comprised of densely cytoplasmic, undifferentiated, dividing cells. These cells have properties characteristic of "stem cells" in that their descendants give rise not only to more undifferentiated, meristematic cells but also to the many different cell types that make up the plant body. Thus, understanding how shoot apical meristems work is not only critical to understanding the development of plants but will also shed light on the more general problem of how undifferentiated "stem cell" populations of cells generate complex structures comprised of many different cell types. This new investigator proposes to identify, isolate and characterize a clone the wild-type DNA encoding the SHOOTLESS locus of Arabidopsis. Possible practical applications of this research include the ability to more precisely control shoot regeneration. The data thus far suggest that the SHOOTLESS locus is necessary for the formation of a shoot apical meristem. It is possible that in addition to being necessary for shoot meristem formation, the SHOOTLESS product is also sufficient for shoot meristem formation. If this is true, an increase in the expression of the SHOOTLESS product would increase the likelihood that a given tissue would regenerate shoots. Learning how to control such a gene would result in an increased ability to regenerate shoots from tissues or species that are otherwise recalcitrant to shoot regeneration protocols. This would accelerate the creation of new varieties of commercially important plant species.//