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International Conference on Mathematical Biology and

Annual Meeting of The Society for Mathematical Biology,

July 27-30, 2009

University of British Columbia, Vancouver

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Program

CTE6d
Leila Kheibarshekan Asl
Ghent University
Title A Stomatal Lineage Model for Arabidopsis Leaf Development
Abstract The lower leaf epidermis of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana consists of two cell types, stomatal guard cells and pavement cells. Stomata are small pores on the surface of leaves whose aperture is controlled by two guard cells. Here we concentrate on the initiation and regulation of precursor cells that form guard cells and pavement cells. We build a mathematical model for the stomatal lineage. The cell cycle duration (L) and the growth rates of pavement and guard cells (gPC and gGC) are involved in this model as parameters, as well as two thresholds (TPC and TGC) for the area of pavement and guard cells. Two other parameters are p1, the fraction of pavement cells with area below TPC that are in the process of dividing into pavement cells and p2, the fraction of pavement cells with area below TPC and 2TGC that will divide into guard cells. The model is based on a map from the density functions of pavement and guard cells on a given day to the density functions on the next day. We use optimization methods to estimate the parameters. An important and rather unexpected result is that the cell cycle duration is nearly constant during leaf development. Another unexpected result is that there is no evidence for the existence of a threshold TPC, hence the cell size in itself does not determine whether the cell is in the endocycle phase.
CoauthorsStijn Dhondt, VĂ©ronique Boudolf, Gerrit Beemster, Lieven Deveylder and Willy Govaerts
LocationWoodward 6