Network regulation of calcium signal in stomatal development1

Abstract

Each cell is the production of multiple signal transduction programs involving the expression of thousands of genes. This study aims to gain insights into the gene regulation mechanisms of stomatal development and will investigate the relationships among some signaling transduction pathways. Nail enamel printing was conducted to observe the stomatal indices of wild type and 10 mutants (plant hormone mutants, Pi-starvation induced CaM mutants and Pi-starvation-response mutant) in Arabidopsis, and their stomatal indices were analyzed by ANOVA. We analyzed the stomatal indices of 10 Arabidopsis mutants were analyzed by a model PRGE (potential relative effect of genes) to research relations among these genes. In wild type and 10 mutants, the stomatal index did not differ with respect to location on the lower epidermis. Compared with wild type, the stomatal indices of 10 mutants all decreased significantly. Moreover, significant changes and interactions might exist between some mutant genes. It was the stomatal intensity in Arabidopsis might be highly sensitive to most mutations in genome. While the effect of many gene mutations on the stomatal index might be negative, we also could assume the stomatal development was regulated by a signal network in which one signal transduction change might influence the stomatal development more or less, and the architecture might be reticulate. Furthermore, we could speculate that calcium was a hub in stomatal development signal regulation network, and other signal transduction pathways regulated stomatal development by influencing or being influenced by calcium signal transduction pathways.