During vegetative growth, all the organs of the aerial part of a plant body such as stems, leaves, and axillary buds are repetitively generated from a shoot apical meristem (tissues consisting of stem cells) as a unit, called a "phytomer".  This repetitive pattern of development, which is designated the "piling pattern", is characteristic of the development of land plants.  Such a development must be accomplished by repetitive  co-ordination of cell proliferation and cell differentiation, which might be controlled by phytohormones, cytokinin and auxin, and light.  We are basically interested in such controlling mechanisms of plant cell proliferation and differentiation.  We are engaged in four research subjects:
 
   (1) The MAP kinase pathway that controls plant cytokinesis,

   (2) Development of Arabidopsis leaves,

   (3) Development of plant epidermis and its function for plant morphogenesis,

   (4) Molecular functions of oncogene 6b derived from Agrobacterium.