Simultaneous cell tracking and image alignment in 3D CLSM imagery of growing arabidopsis thaliana sepals

In this research we propose a combined cell matching and image alignment method for tracking cells based on their nuclear locations in 3D fluorescent Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) image sequences. We then apply it to study the cell division pattern in the developing sepal of the small plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The method is based on geometric hashing and inherits its invariance to rotation, translation and scale. The method consists of three steps. In the first step the centroids of nuclei are detected using a previously developed cell detection algorithm, reducing the CLSM volumes to 3D point clouds, wherein every point represents a nuclear centroid with an associated confidence level. In the second step centroids between images are matched in two phases. First geometric hashing is used to find an initial set of centroid matches, then using the initial matches a dense matching is obtained through a novel iterative point matching algorithm. In the last step centroid matches are used to estimate transformations and register all input images to a common frame. Our algorithm has successfully aligned 12 volumes encompassing 72 hours data set and matched 258 nuclear lifelines

Salicylic Acid Biosynthesis and Metabolism

Salicylic acid (SA) has been shown to regulate various aspects of growth and development; it also serves as a critical signal for activating disease resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana and other plant species. This review surveys the mechanisms involved in the biosynthesis and metabolism of this critical plant hormone. While a complete biosynthetic route has yet to be established, stressed Arabidopsis appear to synthesize SA primarily via an isochorismate-utilizing pathway in the chloroplast. A distinct pathway utilizing phenylalanine as the substrate also may contribute to SA accumulation, although to a much lesser extent. Once synthesized, free SA levels can be regulated by a variety of chemical modifications. Many of these modifications inactivate SA; however, some confer novel properties that may aid in long distance SA transport or the activation of stress responses complementary to those induced by free SA. In addition, a number of factors that directly or indirectly regulate the expression of SA biosynthetic genes or that influence the rate of SA catabolism have been identified. An integrated model, encompassing current knowledge of SA metabolism in Arabidopsis, as well as the influence other plant hormones exert on SA metabolism, is presented

Flower Development

Flowers are the most complex structures of plants. Studies of Arabidopsis thaliana, which has typical eudicot flowers, have been fundamental in advancing the structural and molecular understanding of flower development. The main processes and stages of Arabidopsis flower development are summarized to provide a framework in which to interpret the detailed molecular genetic studies of genes assigned functions during flower development and is extended to recent genomics studies uncovering the key regulatory modules involved. Computational models have been used to study the concerted action and dynamics of the gene regulatory module that underlies patterning of the Arabidopsis inflorescence meristem and specification of the primordial cell types during early stages of flower development. This includes the gene combinations that specify sepal, petal, stamen and carpel identity, and genes that interact with them. As a dynamic gene regulatory network this module has been shown to converge to stable multigenic profiles that depend upon the overall network topology and are thus robust, which can explain the canalization of flower organ determination and the overall conservation of the basic flower plan among eudicots. Comparative and evolutionary approaches derived from Arabidopsis studies pave the way to studying the molecular basis of diverse floral morphologies