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. Hence, in this study we aimed to identify transcription factors that regulate VND7 expression. So we first selected transcription factors up-regulated at the phase that most of the cells were transdifferentiated into vessel elements. Then we performed the particle bombardment-based transient assays to evaluate whether each candidates can induce VND7 expression using VND7pro:Luciferase construct as a reporter. As a result, we found that several genes could up-regulate VND7 expression including all VND family members. So now we are further analyzing these transcription factors to reveal its function during vessel formation and try to clarify the transcriptional relationships among these factors.
