DEFECTIVE EMBRYO AND MERISTEMS1 (DEM1) Is Essential for Cell Proliferation and Cell Differentiation in Tomato

Abstract

Most flowering plant species contain at least two copies of the DEFECTIVE EMBRYO AND MERISTEMS (DEM) gene with the encoded DEM proteins lacking homology to proteins of known biochemical function. In tomato (Sl; Solanum lycopersicum), stable mutations in the SlDEM1 locus result in shoot and root meristem defects with the dem1 mutant failing to progress past the cotyledon stage of seedling development. Generation of a Somatic Mutagenesis of DEM1 (SMD) transformant line in tomato allowed for the characterization of SlDEM1 gene function past the seedling stage of vegetative development with SMD plants displaying a range of leaf development abnormalities. Further, the sectored or stable in planta expression of specific regions of the SlDEM1 coding sequence also resulted in the generation of tomato transformants that displayed a range of vegetative development defects, which when considered together with the dem1 mutant seedling and SMD transformant line phenotypic data, allowed for the assignment of SlDEM1 gene function to early embryo development, adaxial epidermis cell development, lateral leaf blade expansion, and mesophyll cell proliferation and differentiation.

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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). (This article belongs to the Special Issue New Challenges for Understanding the Molecular Regulation of Plant Developmental Processes) Julie Waldron is thanked for technical assistance. This work was supported by Australian Research Council grant CE034821 and internally by The University of Queensland to B.J.C.; L.M. and M.E.C.R. were supported by The University of Queensland PhD Scholarships, and A.L.E. was supported by a University of Queensland funded RSP2 Senior Research Fellowship. Author Contributions. Conceptualization, L.M. and B.J.C.; methodology, L.M., M.E.C.R., A.W.M. and B.J.C.; formal analysis, L.M., M.E.C.R., C.W.G.M., A.W.M., A.L.E. and B.J.C.; investigation, L.M., M.E.C.R. and A.W.M.; resources, B.J.C.; writing—original draft preparation, L.M., M.E.C.R., A.L.E. and B.J.C.; writing—review and editing, L.M., C.W.G.M., A.L.E. and B.J.C.; project administration, B.J.C.; funding acquisition, B.J.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Data Availability Statement. All plant material reported in this study can be requested from the corresponding author B.J.C upon request. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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