Scientists Just Discovered a New Organ in Common Plant: What Does it Do?

The structure, referred to as a cantil, holds up the flower-bearing arm of the thale cress, a species that have been studied for long.The thale cress may be a humble weed, but to science, it's a crucial model organism.

(Photo : Venessa Garcia)

Cantil 

Scientists use the plant as a proxy while carrying out experiments to represent other plants, animals and even humans - all thanks to its somewhat short lifecycle and uncomplicated genome. Researchers have even sent the thale cress to the International Space Station and the moon.

Tim Gookin, a molecular biologist who previously worked at the Pennsylvania State University said: "It's the fruit fly of the plant world." But despite the fact that researchers have carefully examined the plant, Aribidopsis thalania, since the 16th century, the thale cress still looks for a way to surprise.

Gookin and his team have discovered that the thale cress produces a formerly unreported plant organ, as described in Development. This wonky-looking plant part is almost the same as the cantilever beams that buttress the underside of bridges, and is referred to as the "cantil."

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The Newly Discovered Part

This newly discovered  part sticks out from the stem and links to the flower-bearing arm of the plant, which is called the pedicel. Thale cress cantils give the plant the looks of bent elbows; cantil-less plants seem to possess only straight arms. Cantils are neither part of the stem nor the pedicel. They're a completely new organ, says Gookin.

One reason, Gookin concluded, is that cantils only form when the thale cress postpone its flowering, especially during spring when there is limited daylight. In this season, the thale cress transitions more gradually from the leaf-production phase to the reproductive flowering stage, compared to during the summertime when there is excess sunshine.

At this slow pace, the cantil gradually manifests at the cusp of flowering, immediately after the flower-tipped pedicel makes its debut. If the plant only undergoes seasons with extended hours of sunshine, the cantil will never make an appearance.

(Photo : Getty Images)

Thale Cress Mutant Strain 

Scientists usually grow the thale cress under long-daylight conditions so as to speed up to the seed-production stage, not giving time for the development of the cantil to take place. Another reason for the obscurity of the cantil is labs' extensive use of a thale cress mutant strain that doesn't make the buttressing structure.

This Ler strain bears a mutation in a gene that Gookin says stops the plant from making the part.
Gookin's finding that the cantil is a new organ comes after a meticulous twelve-year investigation. In 2008, when he initially observed cantils in thale cresses, he worried that the part had arisen after he had mixed his seeds up or after dissimilar strains had cross-fertilized in the lab. 

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