3 Biology -- Plant Hormones

Physiological effects of cytokinins.

Physiological effects of cytokinins.

1. Promotion of cell division: The major physiological role of naturally occurring cytokinins is to promote cell division. It is now well established that these are true cell division factors in a number of lower and higher plants. In the presence of auxins, nearly all cytokinins stimulate cell division and subsequent callus growth in the parenchymatous cells of several plants.

2. Cell enlargement: The cytokinins can also induce cell enlargement like auxins and gibberellins. This effect of cell enlargement may be due to an influence on micro fibril orientation from longitudinal to radial direction and has been observed in tobacco pith cultures, cortical cells of tobacco roots and pumpkin cotyledons. Cytokinins also promote cell expansion (although without proton extrusion) in leafy cotyledons of some plants like mustard, sunflower, cucumber, radish,etc. The expansion of cotyledons is rather more due to cell enlargement than due to cell division.

3. Morphogenesis: Cytokinins play a vital role in the morphogens in plants. It is now well known that kinetin- auxin interaction controls the morphogenetic differentiation of shoot and root meristems. Skoog (1956-57) demonstrated that tobacco pith callus tissue grown in high auxin and low kinetin produced only roots whereas high kinetin and low auxin could promote the formation of shoot buds. The cytokinins also stimulate the production of buds in leaf segments of various plants such as Bryophyllum , Begonia,etc. The cytokinins also cause other morphogenetic responses like maturation of protoplastids into plastids, differentiation of tracheids, induction of parthenocarpy and induction of flowering.

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