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bundle sheath

noun

, Botany.
  1. a layer of cells in plant leaves and stems that surrounds a vascular bundle.


bundle sheath

  1. A layer or region of compactly arranged cells surrounding a vascular bundle in a plant. The bundle sheaths regulate the movement of substances between the vascular tissue and the parenchyma and, in leaves, protect the vascular tissue from exposure to air.
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Example Sentences

C4 plants recruit bundle sheath cells, which normally serve as leaf vein support, to photosynthesize alongside mesophyll cells.

When measuring gene expression in rice and sorghum plants, the scientists found that a transcription factor family commonly referred to as DOFs were in charge of turning on the genes to make bundle sheath cells in both species.

While previous methods were too imprecise to distinguish neighboring cells like mesophyll and bundle sheath cells, single-cell genomics allowed the team to investigate the genetic and structural changes in each cell type from both plants.

However, in C4 sorghum plants, this regulatory element was not only associated with bundle sheath identity genes -- it was also turning on the photosynthesis genes.

That suggested that C4 plants had at some point tacked ancestral regulatory elements for bundle sheath genes onto photosynthesis genes, so that DOFs would turn on both sets of genes at the same time.

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