Coupling water fluxes with cell wall mechanics in a multicellular model of plant development

PLoS Comput Biol. 2019 Jun 20;15(6):e1007121. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007121. eCollection 2019 Jun.

Abstract

The growth of plant organs is a complex process powered by osmosis that attracts water inside the cells; this influx induces simultaneously an elastic extension of the walls and pressure in the cells, called turgor pressure; above a threshold, the walls yield and the cells grow. Based on Lockhart's seminal work, various models of plant morphogenesis have been proposed, either for single cells, or focusing on the wall mechanical properties. However, the synergistic coupling of fluxes and wall mechanics has not yet been fully addressed in a multicellular model. This work lays the foundations of such a model, by simplifying as much as possible each process and putting emphasis on the coupling itself. Its emergent properties are rich and can help to understand plant morphogenesis. In particular, we show that the model can display a new type of lateral inhibitory mechanism that amplifies growth heterogeneities due e.g to cell wall loosening.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Wall / physiology*
  • Computational Biology
  • Models, Biological*
  • Plant Development / physiology*
  • Water / physiology*

Substances

  • Water

Grants and funding

IC received funding from the Agropolis foundation in Montpellier, France. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.