The shoot apical meristem and development of vascular architecture

The shoot apical meristem (SAM) functions to generate external architecture and internal tissue pattern as well as to maintain a self-perpetuating population of stem-cell-like cells. The internal three-dimensional architecture of the vascular system corresponds closely to the external arrangement of lateral organs, or phyllotaxis. This paper reviews this correspondence for dicotyledonous plants in general and in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh., specifically. Analysis is partly based on the expression patterns of the class III homeodomain-leucine zipper transcription factor ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA HOMEOBOX GENE 8 (ATHB8), a marker of the procambial and preprocambial stages of vascular development, and on the anatomical criteria for recognizing vascular tissue pattern. The close correspondence between phyllotaxis and vascular pattern present in mature tissues arises at early stages of development, at least by the first plastochron of leaf primordium outgrowth. Current literature provides an integrative model in which local variation in auxin concentration regulates both primordium formation on the SAM and the first indications of a procambial prepattern in the position of primordium leaf trace as well as in the elaboration of leaf vein pattern. The prospects for extending this model to the development of the complex three-dimensional vascular architecture of the shoot are promising.