In multicellular organisms, temporal and spatial regulation of cell proliferation is central for generating organs with defined sizes and morphologies. For establishing and maintaining the postmitotic quiescent state during cell differentiation, it is important to repress genes with mitotic functions. We found that three of the Arabidopsis MYB3R transcription factors synergistically maintain G2/M-specific genes repressed in post-mitotic cells and restrict the time window of mitotic gene expression in proliferating cells. The combined mutants of the three repressor-type MYB3R genes displayed long roots, enlarged leaves, embryos, and seeds. Genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation revealed that MYB3R3 binds to the promoters of G2/M-specific genes and to E2F target genes. MYB3R3 associates with the repressor-type E2F, E2FC, and the RETINOBLASTOMA RELATED proteins. In contrast, the activator MYB3R4 was in complex with E2FB in proliferating cells. With mass spectrometry and pairwise interaction assays, we identified some of the other conserved components of the multiprotein complexes, known as DREAM/dREAM in human and flies. In plants, these repressor complexes are important for periodic expression during cell cycle and to establish a post-mitotic quiescent state determining organ size.

The floral development of staminate and pistillate flowers of Ceratophyllum demersum was observed, with particular focus on the phyllotactic variation in staminate flowers, using scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). We discerned patterns of development of some important new morphological features, e.g., the difference and discontinuity between the organ initiation in stamens and that in bracts (or tepals) and the initial presence of a mucilaginous appendage on each pistil. Female flowers are considered to be very specialized through reduction. In male flowers stamen initiation changes between early and late floral development. The four or five stamens in the outermost whorl initiate first on the abaxial and lateral sides of the floral apex and only later on the adaxial side (unidirectional). Later the inner stamens initiate spirally, and this is the main pattern in the stamen initiation. Members of each whorl differ among themselves in time of initiation and in ultimate size. The phyllotactic variation in staminate flowers of Ceratophyllum, suggested by previous studies, is derived from the variation in stamen number and the difference of stamen initiation between the early and later stages. The development in Ceratophyllum has some similarities to those of ANITA plants except for Nymphaeales.

The initiation pattern of organs in the outer whorls of C. demersum flowers is distorted by mechanical pressure, resulting in the phyllotactic variation of staminate flowers. Vegetative buds are the main axillary buds with floral buds as accessory buds, which suggests that the shoot of C. demersum has been modified from a decussate phyllotaxis.

Plant leaves are arranged around the stem in a beautiful geometry that is called phyllotaxis. In the majority of plants, phyllotaxis exhibits a distichous, Fibonacci spiral, decussate, or tricussate pattern. To explain the regularity and limited variety of phyllotactic patterns, many theoretical models have been proposed, mostly based on the notion that a repulsive interaction between leaf primordia determines the position of primordium initiation. Among them, particularly notable are the two models of Douady and Couder (alternate-specific form, DC1; more generalized form, DC2), the key assumptions of which are that each leaf primordium emits a constant power that inhibits new primordium formation and that this inhibitory effect decreases with distance. It was previously demonstrated by computer simulations that any major type of phyllotaxis can occur as a self-organizing stable pattern in the framework of DC models. However, several phyllotactic types remain unaddressed. An interesting example is orixate phyllotaxis, which has a tetrastichous alternate pattern with periodic repetition of a sequence of different divergence angles: 180°, 90°, −180°, and −90°. Although the term orixate phyllotaxis was derived from Orixa japonica , this type is observed in several distant taxa, suggesting that it may reflect some aspects of a common mechanism of phyllotactic patterning. Here we examined DC models regarding the ability to produce orixate phyllotaxis and found that model expansion via the introduction of primordial age-dependent changes of the inhibitory power is absolutely necessary for the establishment of orixate phyllotaxis. The orixate patterns generated by the expanded version of DC2 (EDC2) were shown to share morphological details with real orixate phyllotaxis. Furthermore, the simulation results obtained using EDC2 fitted better the natural distribution of phyllotactic patterns than did those obtained using the previous models. Our findings imply that changing the inhibitory power is generally an important component of the phyllotactic patterning mechanism.

Ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD)/hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) composite (UNCD/a-C:H) films possess the following specific characteristics: (a) the appearance of additional energy levels in diamond bandgap and (b) large absorption coefficients ranging from visible to ultraviolet, both of which might be due to large number of grain boundaries between UNCD grains and those between UNCD grains and a-C:H. Owing to them, UNCD/a-C:H films are expected to be applied to photovoltaics such as UV sensors. Actually thus far, we have fabricated pn heterojunction diodes comprising p-type UNCD/a-C:H films and n-type Si substrates, and confirmed their photovoltaic action. In this study, the minority carrier lifetime, which is an important factor for photovoltaics, was experimentally measured by microwave reflected photoconductivity decay, and it was estimated to be 0.21 and 0.43 µs for UNCD/a-C and UNCD/ a-C:H, respectively. In addition, on the basis of the previous work on the heterojunctions, the effects of hydrogenation on the photovoltaic action of the heterojunctions were studied. The photocurrent apparently increases with an enhancement in the hydrogenation of UNCD/a-C:H films, which might be because dangling bonds in the UNCD/a-C:H films, which act as photogenerated-carrier trap centers, are terminated by hydrogen atoms.