A pulse-chase strategy for EdU labelling assay is able to rapidly quantify cell division orientation.

Measurement of the direction of cell division is an important, yet difficult, task to analyse how a plant organ acquires its final shape from an initially small group of cells. We introduce a method that rapidly and easily quantifies cell division direction and is applicable to all plant species. A pulse-chase strategy for 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) labelling assay was established and was shown to be successful for leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) and Juncus prismatocarpus. By optimization of the pulse and chase periods, most of the signals obtained were sets of daughter nuclei. For Arabidopsis, the optimal time was a 45-min pulse and a 7-h chase. For J. prismatocarpus, the optimal time was a 2-h pulse and a 13.5-h chase. The positions of the daughter nuclei were used to quantify cell division direction in the Arabidopsis leaf primordia. Overall, cell division along the proximal-distal axis was more frequent than along the medial-lateral axis. In petiole, major vein, minor vein and margin areas, the major cell division direction seemed to be coincident with the direction of auxin flow. The advantages of our method over the few methods used previously are discussed. We anticipate that it will provide opportunities to study plant development in the near future.