Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Journal Club
  • Published:

Roots of beauty

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 14, page 268 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

The arrangement of flowers around the stem and the patterns of veins in a leaf are examples of the many attractive spatial patterns that plants can create. Many of these patterns are generated during development by polar transport of the phytohormone auxin. Auxin gradients, which result from the self-organization of auxin transport, are as important in plant development as morphogen gradients are to animal development. The concept of a self-organizing auxin transport system can be traced to a paper published by Tsvi Sachs in the late 1960s.

Sachs ... influenced our understanding of plant development with simple experiments using peas, auxin-laced lanolin, steady hands and a rigorous mind.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS

  1. Sachs, T. Polarity and the induction of organized vascular tissues. Ann. Bot. 33, 263–275 (1969)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Vanneste, S. & Friml, J. Auxin: a trigger for change in plant development. Cell 136, 1005–1016 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, UK

    Robert Sablowski

Authors
  1. Robert Sablowski
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sablowski, R. Roots of beauty. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 14, 268 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm3559

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm3559

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing