Arlette Nougarède's research focuses on the primary meristems of higher plants (structural and ultrastructural cytology; cytochemistry, DNA, RNA, proteins; functioning, cell cycle).
After simple mitosis surveys for the vegetative point of Bean,[3] quantitative methods are gradually being used to estimate mean cell, nuclear, nucleolar volumes and to evaluate mitotic and labelling indices, after incorporation, by the meristem, of tritiated precursors of DNA and RNA synthesis.
The following pre-flowering phase[9] is characterized by the reactivation of the axial apical zone, the cessation of foliar initiation and the rapid differentiation of the cells of the medullary meristem.
[18] Arlette Nougarède and her team identify, in the whole plant, regions of constant localization, differentiated into G1 and which possess organogenic capacities that neighbouring cells, which have become polyploid, have lost.
In the 20th century, histocytology and ontogenic examination made it possible to understand how plant meristems regularly form cells that differentiate into organ building tissues.