Plant Shoot Gravitropism

Dear Colleagues,

Gravitropism is traditionally defined as the directed growth of a plant or plant organ in response to gravity. It appears as a bending that restores the normal orientation of a plant’s body with respect to the gravity vector. When considering gravitropism in shoots, the above definition is only accurate for their young elongating parts that bend due to a difference in the rate of axial cell growth. However, some mature non-elongating shoots also bend gravitropically, but through a completely different mechanism based on the contractile properties of their fibers. The role of cell walls in shoot gravitropism is more multifaceted than their involvement in root gravitropism. Unlike roots growing in dense soil, plant shoots have no physical support from the surrounding medium. Thus, the fine control of cell wall extensibility, which underlies differential cell elongation during gravitropism, should be delicately balanced with wall reinforcement in shoots to keep their vertical position in the field of gravity. The mechanical resistance of shoots to the gravitational force termed gravity resistance is considered a separate shoot response to gravity than gravitropism. This present Special Issue of Plants will focus on all recent developments in the exciting field of plant shoot gravitropism: from the gravity perception, through signal transduction, and to the growth response or the generation of contractile properties, which both involve fine changes at the level of cell wall polymers.

Dr. Dmitry Suslov
Guest Editor

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• shoot
• gravitropism
• gravity resistance
• statoliths
• amyloplasts
• auxin
• signal transduction
• microgravity
• hypergravity
• cell wall
• extensibility
• differential growth
• microtubules
• G-layer
• plant fibers
• tertiary cell wall
• cellulose
• xyloglucan
• mannan
• rhamnogalacturonan-I