Proper division plane orientation and mitotic progression together allow normal growth of maize.

Abstract

How growth, microtubule dynamics, and cell-cycle progression are coordinated is one of the unsolved mysteries of cell biology. A maize mutant, <i>tangled1</i>, with known defects in growth and proper division plane orientation, and a recently characterized cell-cycle delay identified by time-lapse imaging, was used to clarify the relationship between growth, cell cycle, and proper division plane orientation. The <i>tangled1</i> mutant was fully rescued by introduction of cortical division site localized TANGLED1-YFP. A CYCLIN1B destruction box was fused to TANGLED1-YFP to generate a line that mostly rescued the division plane defect but still showed cell-cycle delays when expressed in the <i>tangled1</i> mutant. Although an intermediate growth phenotype between wild-type and the <i>tangled1</i> mutant was expected, these partially rescued plants grew as well as wild-type siblings, indicating that mitotic progression delays alone do not alter overall growth. These data indicate that division plane orientation, together with proper cell-cycle progression, is critical for plant growth.