Abstract
We established the in vitro system for vessel element transdifferentiation in Arabidopsis Col-0 suspension cells. Through a microarray analysis of the system we identified a number of genes with drastic changes in expression during the transdifferentiation. Moreover, we revealed that VASCULAR-RELATED NAC-DOMIN7 (VND7) encoding a NAC-domain transcription factor functions as a master regulator for vessel formation. However, the regulatory mechanism of VND7 expression is still largely unknown. Therefore, in this study we aimed to identify transcription factors that regulate the VND7 expression. We selected 58 transcription factor genes with up-regulated expression during vessel formation in addition to VND family genes, VND1 to VND7, for the particle bombardment-based transient assays with the VND7pro:Luciferase construct. As a result, we found that several genes regulate the VND7 expression positively, which include ASL18/LBD30 and ASL20/LBD18 previously shown to induce the VND7 expression and all VND family genes. We are now further analyzing the transcriptional relationship among these transcription factors.
