title: Root layers: complex regulation of developmental patterning.
abstract: Developmental patterning events involve cell fate specification and maintenance processes in diverse, multicellular organisms. The simple arrangement of tissue layers in the Arabidopsis thaliana root provides a highly tractable system for the study of these processes. This review highlights recent work addressing the patterning of root tissues focusing on the factors involved and their complex regulation. In the past two years studies of root patterning have indicated that chromatin remodeling, protein movement, transcriptional networks, and an auxin gradient, all contribute to the complexity inherent in developmental patterning events within the root. As a result, future research advances in this field will require tissue-specific information at both the single gene and global level.
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, IGSP Center for Systems Biology, Duke University, 124 Science Drive, FFSC 4101, Durham, NC 27708, United States. jp94@duke.edu
authors.forename: Jalean J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Petricka
authors.forename: Philip N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Benfey
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000235:genetics*; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D008954:Models, Biological; D019441:Plant Epidermis / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development*; D055153:Stem Cell Niche / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology