Molecular Genetics of Stomatal Development in Brachypodium

Stomata, epidermal valves composed of guard cells flanking a central pore, are responsible for regulating plant water loss and gas exchange.  Although stomatal development has been relatively well studied in Arabidopsis thaliana, much less is known about this process in grass species, which differ in both the morphology and the overall pattern of their stomata. In the Bergmann lab, we are using the forage grass Brachypodium distachyon as a model to understand stomatal development in grasses, employing both a forward genetic screen and reverse genetic approaches focused on orthologues of stomatal regulators from Arabidopsis and maize. I will present data on the phenotypic and molecular characterization of Brachypodium mutants with defects in stomatal developent, as well as the generation of stomatal lineage markers for grasses.