De novo meristem formation: how to grow a plant from a single spore?
Multicellular adult plant bodies develop from stem cells located in meristems. However, we know little about how meristems are formed. Liverworts, such as Marchantia polymorpha, grow bodies from unicellular spores that develop in isolation from the mother plant, which allows all stages of their early development to be observed. I discovered that the spore undergoes a series of precisely oriented divisions that lead to timely formation of organized cellular structures. These first sporeling structures define the body axes, set up dorsoventrality of the flat Marchantia body and position the first meristem.