ArticlePlant physiology2004
Disorganization of cortical microtubules stimulates tangential expansion and reduces the uniformity of cellulose microfibril alignment among cells in the root of Arabidopsis.
Article in Plant physiology, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 169 citations in OpenAlex.
- A multiscale growth atlas of Arabidopsis: linking cell dynamics to organ development.The New phytologist · 2026Pooled it
- Auxin-mediated stress relaxation in pericycle and endoderm remodeling drives lateral root initiation.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Cytoskeleton as a generator of characteristic physical properties of plant cells: 'cell wall,' 'large vacuole,' and 'cytoplasmic streaming'.Biophysics and physicobiology · 2025Article
- Spatial consistency of cell growth direction during organ morphogenesis requires CELLULOSE SYNTHASE INTERACTIVE1.Cell reports · 2023Article
- Leaf nodule endosymbiotic Burkholderia confer targeted allelopathy to their Psychotria hosts.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The Steroid Saponin Protodioscin ModulatesPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Coumarin Interferes with Polar Auxin Transport Altering Microtubule Cortical Array Organization inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Discovery, characterization and functional improvement of kumamonamide as a novel plant growth inhibitor that disturbs plant microtubules.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- A label-free, fast and high-specificity technique for plant cell wall imaging and composition analysis.Plant methods · 2021Article
- Phytotoxic Effects and Mechanism of Action of Essential Oils and Terpenoids.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Mutations in the Pectin Methyltransferase QUASIMODO2 Influence Cellulose Biosynthesis and Wall Integrity in Arabidopsis.The Plant cell · 2020Article
- Phytohormone cytokinin guides microtubule dynamics during cell progression from proliferative to differentiated stage.The EMBO journal · 2020Article
- TANGLED1 mediates microtubule interactions that may promote division plane positioning in maize.The Journal of cell biology · 2020Article
- The Cytoskeleton and Its Role in Determining Cellulose Microfibril Angle in Secondary Cell Walls of Woody Tree Species.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Gibberellin Enhances the Anisotropy of Cell Expansion in the Growth Zone of the Maize Leaf.Frontiers in plant science · 2020Article
- Spatiotemporal cytoskeleton organizations determine morphogenesis of multicellular trichomes in tomato.PLoS genetics · 2019Article
- TRM4 is essential for cellulose deposition in Arabidopsis seed mucilage by maintaining cortical microtubule organization and interacting with CESA3.The New phytologist · 2019Article
- Cortical microtubule orientation inJournal of biological research (Thessalonike, Greece) · 2018Article
- Actin Reorganization Triggers Rapid Cell Elongation in Roots.Plant physiology · 2018Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To test the role of cortical microtubules in aligning cellulose microfibrils and controlling anisotropic expansion, we exposed Arabidopsis thaliana roots to moderate levels of the microtubule inhibitor, oryzalin. After 2 d of treatment, roots grow at approximately steady state. At that time, the spatial profiles of relative expansion rate in length and diameter were quantified, and roots were cryofixed, freeze-substituted, embedded in plastic, and sectioned. The angular distribution of microtubules as a function of distance from the tip was quantified from antitubulin immunofluorescence images. In alternate sections, the overall amount of alignment among microfibrils and their mean orientation as a function of position was quantified with polarized-light microscopy. The spatial profiles of relative expansion show that the drug affects relative elongation and tangential expansion rates independently. The microtubule distributions averaged to transverse in the growth zone for all treatments, but on oryzalin the distributions became broad, indicating poorly organized arrays. At a subcellular scale, cellulose microfibrils in oryzalin-treated roots were as well aligned as in controls; however, the mean alignment direction, while consistently transverse in the controls, was increasingly variable with oryzalin concentration, meaning that microfibril orientation in one location tended to differ from that of a neighboring location. This conclusion was confirmed by direct observations of microfibrils with field-emission scanning electron microscopy. Taken together, these results suggest that cortical microtubules ensure microfibrils are aligned consistently across the organ, thereby endowing the organ with a uniform mechanical structure.
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