H. Shibaoka, REGULATION BY GIBBERELLINS OF THE ORIENTATION OF CORTICAL MICROTUBULES IN PLANT-CELLS, Australian journal of plant physiology, 20(4-5), 1993, pp. 461-470
Gibberellins control the direction of expansion of plant cells. They c
hange the orientation of cellulose microfibrils by changing the orient
ation of cortical microtubules and, hence, the direction of cell expan
sion. When gibberellins change the orientation of cortical microtubule
s, they also change their stability. If the way in which gibberellins
change the orientation of microtubules is identical to the way in whic
h they change microtubule stability, then studies on the mechanism tha
t regulates this stability should give us some clues to the mechanism
that regulates the orientation of microtubules. With this possibility
in mind, we undertook a series of studies on the stability of cortical
microtubules. These revealed that the association of cortical microtu
bules with the plasma membrane is an important part of the mechanism f
or their stabilisation. Gibberellins seem to change the stability of m
icrotubules by affecting their association with the plasma membrane. T
o study the way in which the gibberellins affect this association, it
is necessary to clarify the molecular architecture of the structure th
at links cortical microtubules with the plasma membrane.