The Whitewoods Group aims to understand how plants pattern the inside of their leaves.
From the surface leaves look like flat green sheets, but inside is a hidden world of complexity: many leaves contain two primary photosynthetic cell types surrounded by intercellular air spaces. The upper half contains densely packed palisade mesophyll cells with only small air spaces, whereas the lower half contains irregularly shaped spongy mesophyll cells surrounded by larger air spaces. This arrangement is thought to maximise light harvesting in the top half and gas exchange and light scattering in the lower half to increase overall photosynthetic efficiency and minimise water loss. However, how these cell types are specified and the air spaces between cells are formed is poorly understood.
Our research aims to answer three main questions:
1- What specifies palisade and spongy mesophyll cell fate?
2- How are intercellular air spaces patterned?
3- How do leaves change their internal structure in response to the environment?
To answer these questions we combine computational modelling with genetic and developmental analysis in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.