Abstract
In higher plants, the profile of gene expression is regulated epigenetically in various developmental events such as flowering and genomic imprinting. However, it is not known whether epigenetic regulation of gene expression occurs in a process forming vascular tissues which is important for plant morphology formation as an individual. To examine the dynamics of chromatin during differentiation of xylem, we use a Zinnia cell culture system, in which isolated mesophylls transdifferentiate into tracheary elements. After adding the inhibitors of DNA methyltransferase and histone deacetylase, transdifferentiation of mesophylls into tracheary elements was inhibited without affecting cell division. The inhibition depended on the concentration of inhibitors and the time when they were added. We will also report the results of microarray analysis of the gene expression in the inhibitor-treated cells using newly developed Zinnia gene chip zinnia-17k.
