Dominique C. Bergmann

Transcription factor control of asymmetric cell divisions that establish the stomatal lineage

The establishment of new cell lineages during development often requires a symmetry-breaking event. An asymmetric division in the epidermis of plants initiates a lineage that ultimately produces stomatal guard cells. Stomata are pores in the epidermis that serve as the main conduits for gas exchange between plants and the atmosphere; they are critical for photosynthesis and exert a major influence on global carbon and water cycles. Recent studies implicated intercellular signalling in preventing the inappropriate production of stomatal complexes. Genes required to make stomata, however, remained elusive. Here we report the identification of a gene, SPEECHLESS (SPCH), encoding a basic helix–loop–helix (bHLH) transcription factor that is necessary and sufficient for the asymmetric divisions that establish the stomatal lineage in Arabidopsis thaliana. We demonstrate that SPCH and two paralogues are successively required for the initiation, proliferation and terminal differentiation of cells in the stomatal lineage. The stomatal bHLHs define a molecular pathway sufficient to create one of the key cell types in plants. Similar molecules and regulatory mechanisms are used during muscle and neural development, highlighting a conserved use of closely related bHLHs for cell fate specification and differentiation.

Arabidopsis Stomatal Initiation Is Controlled by MAPK-Mediated Regulation of the bHLH SPEECHLESS

Stomata, epidermal structures that modulate gas exchange between plants and the atmosphere, play critical roles in primary productivity and the global climate. Positively acting transcription factors and negatively acting mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling control stomatal development in Arabidopsis; however, it is not known how the opposing activities of these regulators are integrated. We found that a unique domain in a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) stomatal initiating factor, SPEECHLESS, renders it a MAPK phosphorylation target in vitro and modulates its function in vivo. MAPK cascades modulate a diverse set of activities including development, cell proliferation, and response to external stresses. The coupling of MAPK signaling to SPEECHLESS activity provides cell type specificity for MAPK output while allowing the integration of multiple developmental and environmental signals into the production and spacing of stomata.

Brassinosteroid regulates stomatal development by GSK3-mediated inhibition of a MAPK pathway

Plants must coordinate the regulation of biochemistry and anatomy to optimize photosynthesis and water-use efficiency. The formation of stomata, epidermal pores that facilitate gas exchange, is highly coordinated with other aspects of photosynthetic development. The signalling pathways controlling stomata development are not fully understood, although mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signalling is known to have key roles. Here we demonstrate in Arabidopsis that brassinosteroid regulates stomatal development by activating the MAPK kinase kinase (MAPKKK) YDA (also known as YODA). Genetic analyses indicate that receptor kinase-mediated brassinosteroid signalling inhibits stomatal development through the glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3)-like kinase BIN2, and BIN2 acts upstream of YDA but downstream of the ERECTA family of receptor kinases. Complementary in vitro and in vivo assays show that BIN2 phosphorylates YDA to inhibit YDA phosphorylation of its substrate MKK4, and that activities of downstream MAPKs are reduced in brassinosteroid-deficient mutants but increased by treatment with either brassinosteroid or GSK3-kinase inhibitor. Our results indicate that brassinosteroid inhibits stomatal development by alleviating GSK3-mediated inhibition of this MAPK module, providing two key links; that of a plant MAPKKK to its upstream regulators and of brassinosteroid to a specific developmental output.

BASL Controls Asymmetric Cell Division in Arabidopsis

Development in multicellular organisms requires the organized generation of differences. A universal mechanism for creating such differences is asymmetric cell division. In plants, as in animals, asymmetric divisions are correlated with the production of cellular diversity and pattern; however, structural constraints imposed by plant cell walls and the absence of homologs of known animal or fungal cell polarity regulators necessitates that plants utilize new molecules and mechanisms to create asymmetries. Here, we identify BASL, a novel regulator of asymmetric divisions in Arabidopsis. In asymmetrically dividing stomatal-lineage cells, BASL accumulates in a polarized crescent at the cell periphery before division, and then localizes differentially to the nucleus and a peripheral crescent in self-renewing cells and their sisters after division. BASL presence at the cell periphery is critical for its function, and we propose that BASL represents a plant-specific solution to the challenge of asymmetric cell division.

Novel and Expanded Roles for MAPK Signaling in Arabidopsis Stomatal Cell Fate Revealed by Cell Type–Specific Manipulations

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling networks regulate numerous eukaryotic biological processes. In Arabidopsis thaliana, signaling networks that contain MAPK kinases MKK4/5 and MAPKs MPK3/6 function in abiotic and biotic stress responses and regulate embryonic and stomatal development. However, how single MAPK modules direct specific output signals without cross-activating additional downstream processes is largely unknown. Studying relationships between MAPK components and downstream signaling outcomes is difficult because broad experimental manipulation of these networks is often lethal or associated with multiple phenotypes. Stomatal development in Arabidopsis follows a series of discrete, stereotyped divisions and cell state transitions. By expressing a panel of constitutively active MAPK kinase (MAPKK) variants in discrete stomatal lineage cell types, we identified a new inhibitory function of MKK4 and MKK5 in meristemoid self-renewal divisions. Furthermore, we established roles for MKK7 and MKK9 as both negative and (unexpectedly) positive regulators during the major stages of stomatal development. This has expanded the number of known MAPKKs that regulate stomatal development and allowed us to build plausible and testable subnetworks of signals. This in vivo cell type–specific assay can be adapted to study other protein families and thus may reveal insights into other complex signal transduction pathways in plants.

Stomatal development: a plant's perspective on cell polarity, cell fate transitions and intercellular communication.

The plant stomatal lineage manifests features common to many developmental contexts: precursor cells are chosen from an initially equivalent field of cells, undergo asymmetric and self-renewing divisions, communicate among themselves and respond to information from a distance. As we review here, the experimental accessibility of these epidermal lineages, particularly in Arabidopsis, has made stomata a conceptual and technical framework for the study of cell fate, stem cells, and cell polarity in plants.

Regulation of the Arabidopsis root vascular initial population by LONESOME HIGHWAY

Complex organisms consist of a multitude of cell types arranged in a precise spatial relation to each other. Arabidopsis roots generally exhibit radial tissue organization; however, within a tissue layer, cells are not identical. Specific vascular cell types are arranged in diametrically opposed longitudinal files that maximize the distance between them and create a bilaterally symmetric (diarch) root. Mutations in the LONESOME HIGHWAY (LHW) gene eliminate bilateral symmetry and reduce the number of cells in the center of the root, resulting in roots with only single xylem and phloem poles. LHW does not appear to be required for the creation of any specific cell type, but coordinately controls the number of all vascular cell types by regulating the size of the pool of cells from which they arise. We cloned LHW and found that it encodes a protein with weak sequence similarity to basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH)-domain proteins. LHW is a transcriptional activator in vitro. In plants, LHW is nuclear-localized and is expressed in the root meristems, where we hypothesize it acts independently of other known root-patterning genes to promote the production of stele cells, but might also indirectly feed into established regulatory networks for the maintenance of the root meristem.

Regional specification of stomatal production by the putative ligand CHALLAH

The problem of modulating cell fate programs to create distinct patterns and distributions of specialized cell types in different tissues is common to complex multicellular organisms. Here, we describe the previously uncharacterized CHALLAH (CHAL) gene, which acts as a tissue-specific regulator of epidermal pattern in Arabidopsis thaliana. Arabidopsis plants produce stomata, the cellular valves required for gas exchange, in virtually all aerial organs, but stomatal density and distribution differ among organs and along organ axes. Such regional regulation is particularly evident in plants mutant for the putative receptor TOO MANY MOUTHS (TMM), which produce excess stomata in leaves but no stomata in stems. Mutations in CHAL suppress tmm phenotypes in a tissue-specific manner, restoring stomatal production in stems while minimally affecting leaves. CHAL is similar in sequence to the putative stomatal ligands EPF1 and EPF2 and, like the EPFs, can reduce or eliminate stomatal production when overexpressed. However, CHAL and the EPFs have different relationships to TMM and the ERECTA (ER) family receptors. We propose a model in which CHAL and the EPFs both act through ER family receptors to repress stomatal production, but are subject to opposite regulation by TMM. The existence of two such ligand classes provides an explanation for TMM dual functionality and tissue-specific phenotypes.

Peptide signaling in plant development.

Cell-to-cell communication is integral to the evolution of multicellularity. In plant development, peptide signals relay information coordinating cell proliferation and differentiation. These peptides are often encoded by gene families and bind to corresponding families of receptors. The precise spatiotemporal expression of signals and their cognate receptors underlies developmental patterning, and expressional and biochemical changes over evolutionary time have likely contributed to the refinement and complexity of developmental programs. Here, we discuss two major plant peptide families which have central roles in plant development: the CLAVATA3/ENDOSPERM SURROUNDING REGION (CLE) peptide family and the EPIDERMAL PATTERNING FACTOR (EPF) family. We discuss how specialization has enabled the CLE peptides to modulate stem cell differentiation in various tissue types, and how differing activities of EPF peptides precisely regulate the stomatal developmental program, and we examine the contributions of these peptide families to plant development from an evolutionary perspective.

Generation of Spatial Patterns Through Cell Polarity Switching

A few simple rules are sufficient to keep neighboring stomata at a safe distance from one another. The mechanisms that generate dynamic spatial patterns within proliferating tissues are poorly understood, largely because of difficulties in unravelling interactions between cell specification, polarity, asymmetric division, rearrangements, and growth. We address this problem for stomatal spacing in plants, which offer the simplifying advantage that cells do not rearrange. By tracking lineages and gene activities over extended periods, we show that limited stem cell behavior of stomatal precursors depends on maintenance of the SPEECHLESS (SPCH) transcription factor in single daughter cells. Modeling shows how this property can lead to observed stereotypical stomata lineages through a postmitotic polarity-switching mechanism. The model predicts the location of a polarity determinant BASL over multiple divisions, which we validate experimentally. Our results highlight the dynamic two-way interactions between stem cells and their neighborhood during developmental patterning.