Visualizing auxin transport routes in Arabidopsis leaf primordia.

The phytohormone auxin plays a pivotal role in plant development, regulating a myriad of processes including embryo patterning, root patterning, organ initiation, and vein patterning. Auxin is unique among the plant hormones as it is actively transported from cell to cell in a polar fashion. It has recently been discovered that polar auxin transport generates dynamic, local auxin gradients within plant tissues that appear to provide positional information in patterning processes. Visualization of apparent auxin transport patterns has largely been facilitated by the recent creation of translational fusions of GFP to members of the Arabidopsis (At)PIN family of auxin efflux associated proteins. Confocal visualization of these fusion products (PIN:GFPs) enables the tracking of apparent auxin transport patterns in a huge number of samples. This visualization method can be combined with experimental interference, such as local auxin application and inhibition of auxin transport, to deduce possible self-organizing auxin-dependent patterning mechanisms and to make them amenable to mathematical modeling.