Mechanism and function of root circumnutation

Taylor, Isaiah; Lehner, Kevin; McCaskey, Erin; Nirmal, Niba; Ozkan-Aydin, Yasemin; Murray-Cooper, Mason; Jain, Rashmi; Hawkes, Elliot W.; Ronald, Pamela C.; Goldman, Daniel I.; Benfey, Philip N.

doi:10.1101/2020.05.04.075127

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Additional experiments have been performed in a soil-like testbed showing that the use of plant root-like circumnutations improves the efficiency of penetration (33%) compared to moving directly forwards with no circular movement. In line with these results, additional investigations using "robophysical" modeling have revealed the benefits of tip nutation movements for navigating obstacles and exploring heterogenous terrains (McCaskey et al, 2019;Taylor et al, 2020).…”

Section: Circumnutationsmentioning

confidence: 77%

The Bio-Engineering Approach for Plant Investigations and Growing Robots. A Mini-Review

et al. 2020

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It has been 10 years since the publication of the first article looking at plants as a biomechatronic system and as model for robotics. Now, roboticists have started to look at plants differently and consider them as a model in the field of bioinspired robotics. Despite plants have been seen traditionally as passive entities, in reality they are able to grow, move, sense, and communicate. These features make plants an exceptional example of morphological computation-with probably the highest level of adaptability among all living beings. They are a unique model to design robots that can act in-and adapt to-unstructured, extreme, and dynamically changing environments exposed to sudden or long-term events. Although plant-inspired robotics is still a relatively new field, it has triggered the concept of growing robotics: an emerging area in which systems are designed to create their own body, adapt their morphology, and explore different environments. There is a reciprocal interest between biology and robotics: plants represent an excellent source of inspiration for achieving new robotic abilities, and engineering tools can be used to reveal new biological information. This way, a bidirectional biology-robotics strategy provides mutual benefits for both disciplines. This mini-review offers a brief overview of the fundamental aspects related to a bioengineering approach in plant-inspired robotics. It analyses the works in which both biological and engineering aspects have been investigated, and highlights the key elements of plants that have been milestones in the pioneering field of growing robots.

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Section: Circumnutationsmentioning

confidence: 77%

The Bio-Engineering Approach for Plant Investigations and Growing Robots. A Mini-Review

et al. 2020

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“…However, for the root meristems, we sometimes observed substantial variation across and within genotypes between individual samples (Figure S3A-C). Such effects were compounded with increasing distance from the QC, where morphology became more variable because root meristems are dynamic, growing structures (Taylor et al, 2021; Thompson and Holbrook, 2004). Their developmental plasticity was for instance evident in the fluctuation of growth orientation (Thompson and Holbrook, 2004), which led to both within-root and between-root variation in cellular parameters of the same tissue.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A morpho-transcriptomic map of brassinosteroid action in the Arabidopsis root

Graeff

Rana

Wendrich

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The effects of brassinosteroid signaling on shoot and root development have been characterized in great detail but did not identify a simple consistent positive or negative impact on a basic cellular parameter that would comprehensively explain the phenotype of brassinosteroid-related mutants. Here we combined digital 3D single-cell shape analysis and single-cell mRNA sequencing to characterize root meristems and mature root segments of brassinosteroid-blind mutants and wildtype. These data demonstrate that brassinosteroid signaling neither affects cell volume nor cell proliferation capacity. Instead, brassinosteroid signaling is essential for the precise orientation of cell division planes and the extent and timing of anisotropic cell expansion. Moreover, we found that the cell-aligning effects of brassinosteroid signaling can propagate to normalize the anatomy of both adjacent and distant brassinosteroid-blind cells through non-cell-autonomous functions, which are sufficient to restore overall root growth vigor. Finally, single-cell transcriptome data discern directly brassinosteroid-responsive genes from genes that can react to non-cell-autonomous brassinosteroid-dependent signals and highlight arabinogalactans as sentinels of brassinosteroid-dependent anisotropic cell expansion.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nutating or asymmetric growth allows plant organs to sample the environment and likely improves plant fitness (Taylor et al ., 2020). Although this phenomenon has been noticed long ago, signaling components are just beginning to be revealed (Migliaccio et al ., 2013; Chai et al ., 2020; Taylor et al ., 2020). We report here that FER suppresses ARG such that fer‐4 roots make anti‐clockwise coils on horizontal plates or are wavier on tilted plates (Figure 1; Figure S3).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although gravitropism and thigmotropism influence root nutating behavior, Arabidopsis roots can make clockwise coils in the absence of gravity and mechanical stresses (Piconese et al ., 2003), suggesting it an innate behavior. The helical movement that roots produce along the growth direction is believed to enhance plant fitness by sampling soil efficiently for better growth environments (Migliaccio et al ., 2013; Taylor et al ., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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FERONIA mediates root nutating growth

Wang

Zhang

et al. 2020

The Plant Journal

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Root nutation indicates the behavior that roots grow in a waving and skewing way due to unequal growth rates on different sides. Although a few developmental and environmental factors have been reported, genetic pathways mediating this process are obscure. We report here that the Arabidopsis CrRLK1L family member FERONIA (FER) is critical for root nutation. Functional loss of FER resulted in enhanced root waviness on tilted plates or roots forming anticlockwise coils on horizontal plates. Suppressing polar auxin transport, either by pharmacological treatment or by introducing mutations at PIN-FORMED2 (PIN2) or AUXIN RESISTANT1 (AUX1), suppressed the asymmetric root growth (ARG) in fer-4, a null mutant of FER, indicating that FER suppression of ARG depends on polar auxin transport. We further showed by pharmacological treatments that dynamic microtubule organization and Ca 2+ signaling are both critical for FER-mediated ARG. Results presented here demonstrate a key role of FER in mediating root nutating growth, through PIN2-and AUX1-mediated auxin transport, through dynamic microtubule organization, and through Ca 2+ signaling.

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Mechanism and function of root circumnutation

Abstract: 2 5

Cited by 6 publications

References 40 publications

The Bio-Engineering Approach for Plant Investigations and Growing Robots. A Mini-Review

The Bio-Engineering Approach for Plant Investigations and Growing Robots. A Mini-Review

A morpho-transcriptomic map of brassinosteroid action in the Arabidopsis root

FERONIA mediates root nutating growth

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