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Xylem vessel cell differentiation: A best model for new integrative cell biology?
1Department of Integrated Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Science, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8562, Japan.
Abstract:
Xylem vessels transport water and essential low-molecular-weight compounds throughout vascular plants. To achieve maximum performance as conductive tissues, xylem vessel cells undergo secondary cell wall deposition and programmed cell death to produce a hollow tube-like structure with a rigid outer shell. This unique process has been explored in detail from a cell biology and molecular biology perspective, culminating in the identification of the master transcriptional switches of xylem vessel cell differentiation, the VASCULAR-RELATED NAC-DOMAIN (VND) proteins. High-resolution analyses of xylem vessel cell differentiation have since accelerated and are now moving toward single cell-level dissection from a variety of directions. In this review, we introduce the current model of xylem vessel cell differentiation and discuss possible future directions in this field.
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