ISSN: 2641-9165
Authors: Otsuka J*
The perennial trees regenerate new twigs when some branches are removed and some of such trees also regenerate roots from a separated branch when it is put into the soil. Many species of grasses regenerate blades from left root even if the blades are pinched off. Not a few groups of plants perform vegetative reproduction and clonal growth as well as the reproduction by gametes. Although these properties of higher plants are usually interpreted in terms of meristems, it is proposed in the present paper that they arise from the faster proliferation rate of self-reproducible undifferentiated cells than the transition rate of these cells to the differentiated mode. Such process of cell differentiation is mathematically formulated to indicate that a common property of undifferentiated cells are retained with a considerable amount even after the differentiated cells constitute the root, stem, leaves and even flowers and that the ratios of the numbers of the respective types of differentiated cells are determined in a straightforward way by the transition probabilities from the self-reproducible mode to the differentiation mode, the long-range interaction between the distinctive types of cells and the short-range interaction between the same type of cells, in contrast with the higher animal where the cell differentiation advances forming the so-called “stem cells” and the ability of regeneration is lower. This process of cell differentiation in the higher plants explains the vegetative reproduction and the clonal growth as well as the high ability of regeneration, although it is a future problem to identify the signal transmission that rouses the vegetative reproduction or clonal growth from the undifferentiated cells in subterranean stem.
Keywords: Annual; Clonal Growth; Perennial; Regeneration; Signal Transmission; Vegetative Reproduction
