REGULAR ARTICLESS

Foliar modifications induced by inhibition of polar transport of auxin

NI Di An, Ling Jian WANG, Zhi Hong XU¹, Zhen Ao XIA

Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China

ABSTRACT

  The effects of auxin polar transport inhibitors,9-hydroxy-fluorene-9-carboxylic acid (HFCA); 2, 3, 5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) and trans-cinnamic acid (CA) on leaf pattern formation were investigated with shoots formed from cultured leaf explants of tobacco and cultured pedicel explants of Orychophragmus violaceus, and the seedlings of tobacco and Brassica chinensis. Although the effective concentration varies with the inhibitors used, all of the inhibitors induced the formation of trumpet-shaped and/or fused leaves. The frequency of trumpet-shaped leaf formation was related to the concentration of inhibitors in the medium. Histological observation of tobacco seedlings showed that there was only one main vascular bundle and several minor vascular bundles in normal leaves of the control, but there were several vascular bundles of more or less the same size in the trumpet-shaped leaves of treated ones. These results indicated that auxin polar transport played an important role on bilateral symmetry of leaf growth.

Key words: Brassica chinensis, Orychophragmus violaceus, Nicotiana tabacum, auxin polar transport, foliar modification.

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