Etude de la teneur en DNA nucléaire dans le méristème apical des tiges du Celosia cristata (Amarantacées) en fonction de la photopériode
Two samples of plants of Celosia cristata, a quantitative short-day plant, were grown in an 8-h or a 16-h day. The shoot apices were collected at 11, 15, 18, and 28 days in order to carry out a cytophotometric study of the nuclear DNA in the corpus. This distribution of the DNA values was analyzed statistically using the χ2 test. At the beginning of development, for both 8-h day and 16-h day plants, the DNA content of the majority of the nuclei is at the 2C level. Then the percentage 2C–4C or 4C nuclei increases, slowly for the plants grown under a 16-h photoperiod and quickly for the others. At the 28th day, the Gaussian distribution of DNA values indicates that the state reached by the meristems is quite different. Between the 18th day and the 28th day of culture, ontogenesis of the shoot apex goes through a critical period. At the end of this period, shoot apices of the plants grown under a 16-h photoperiod are in the intermediate phase with a majority of nuclei in the synthetic phase (S) or in the postsynthetic phase (G2). Simultaneously, structural modifications of the axial zone give rise to a central zone characteristic of the fasciation of the shoot apex. In plants grown with an 8-h photoperiod, the shoot apex goes through the prefloral phase with more numerous nuclei in the presynthetic phase (G1) or in the synthetic one (S). For each sample the nuclei clustered in a particular phase of the cell cycle indicate that a certain synchronism of the cell cycles in the corpus takes place. These results are compared with those recently obtained by other authors working with different plants.