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Early shaping of a leaf

Nature Plants volume 4, pages 618–619 (2018)Cite this article

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To the editor — One of the merits of computational modelling is that it can generate behaviours that would be hard to arrive at from simple intuition. However, this can raise the further problem of understanding how the model generates those behaviours. Such understanding may be critical for evaluating the model and developing further experimental tests.

From their analysis, Qi et al. conclude that mechanical heterogeneity is sufficient to produce the asymmetry in planar leaves1. However, it is difficult to intuit how the shape changes generated by their model arise. Plant cells grow through the expansive action of turgor pressure stretching the cell wall2,3. We might, therefore, expect that soft cells would grow faster than stiff cells, as they would be less able to resist the turgor. This would cause the soft green regions to bulge out relative to the stiff pink regions. In their model output, however, the upper soft region flattens and eventually becomes concave rather bulging out (arrowed in Fig. 1c,d). Also, the lower soft region tapers towards the bottom rather than bulging out. These observations suggest that the soft internal regions are growing slower, not faster, than the stiff region.

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Fig. 1: Simulations of leaf morphogenesis.
Fig. 2: Growth of tissue under various constraints.

References

  1. Qi. et al. Nat. Plants 3, 724–733 (2017).

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  2. Cosgrove, D. J. F1000Res 5, F1000 Faculty Rev-119 (2016).

  3. Cosgrove, D. J. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 6, 850–861 (2005).

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  4. Kennaway, R., Coen, E., Green, A. & Bangham, A. PLoS Comp. Biol. 7, e1002071 (2011).

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  1. Cell and Developmental Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK

    Enrico Coen & Richard Kennaway

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  1. Enrico Coen
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  2. Richard Kennaway
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Correspondence to Enrico Coen.

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Coen, E., Kennaway, R. Early shaping of a leaf. Nature Plants 4, 618–619 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0242-6

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