The ability to analyze cell division in both spatial and temporal dimensions within an organism is a key requirement in developmental biology. Specialized cell types within individual organs, such as those within shoot and root apical meristems, have often been identified by differences in their rates of proliferation prior to the characterization of distinguishing molecular markers. Replication-dependent labeling of DNA is a widely used method for assaying cell proliferation. The earliest approaches used radioactive labeling with tritiated thymidine, which were later followed by immunodetection of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). A major advance in DNA labeling came with the use of 5-ethynyl-2'deoxyuridine (EdU) which has proven to have multiple advantages over BrdU. Here we describe the methodology for analyzing EdU labeling and retention in whole plants and histological sections of Arabidopsis.

Central European Institute of Technology Masaryk University Kamenice 753 5 625 00 Brno Czech Republic

Gregor Mendel Institute of Plant Molecular Biology Vienna Biocenter Dr Bohr Gasse 3 Vienna 1030 Austria

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Visualization of the Nucleolus Using Ethynyl Uridine

Germline replications and somatic mutation accumulation are independent of vegetative life span in Arabidopsis