Morphogenesis and bioluminescence in germination of red bean

Abstract

Spontaneous bioluminescence and morphogenesis were investigated for the germination and the growth processes of a red bean seed under suppression of photosynthesis. Three types of shape in seed growth were observed in well controlled conditions: (1) no root hair and leaves, (2) with root hairs and leaves and (3) no root growth. In this article, growth dynamics for the first case was investigated. The average growth dynamics of the root length of a red bean after germination and its variance were well described by a simple logistic equation with a noise term. It was observed that the scaling property for the growth dynamics has held. Strong luminescence was observed at two inflection points of the logistic curve of the root growth. By the use of a two dimensional photon counting method, it was clarified that the strong emission was mainly radiated from the cell division zone near a root cap and rather less emission from an elongation area.