The in vitro zinnia (Zinnia elegans) mesophyll cell system, in which leaf mesophyll cells are induced to transdifferentiate into tracheary elements with high synchrony, has become an established model for studying xylogenesis. The architecture of the stem vascular system of zinnia cv Envy contains three anatomically distinct vascular bundles at different stages of development. Juvenile vascular...

Xylogenic cultures of zinnia (Zinnia elegans) provide a unique opportunity to study signaling pathways of tracheary element (TE) differentiation. In vitro TEs differentiate into either protoxylem (PX)-like TEs characterized by annular/helical secondary wall thickening or metaxylem (MX)-like TEs with reticulate/scalariform/pitted thickening. The factors that determine these different cell fates ...

Caffeic acid 3-O-methyltransferase (CAOMT) and caffeoyl-coenzyme A 3-O-methyltransferase (CCoAOMT) are involved in different methylation pathways in lignin biosynthesis. We previously showed that only the CCoAOMT was markedly induced during lignification in in vitro differentiating tracheary elements (TEs) of Zinnia elegans. To further examine the expression patterns of CAOMT in lignification, ...

Modeling of the plant growth can be visualized using the approach of Lindenmayer System (L-System). This L-System models the plants growth by following the production rules, which are the combination of grammar and mathematic formulae. In this paper, we propose the use of fuzzy mamdani, to model the plant growth based on the current environment condition. The varied amount of fertilizer, both o...

Caffeoyl coenzyme A 3-O-methyltransferase (CCoAOMT) was previously shown to be associated with lignification in both in vitro tracheary elements (TEs) and organs of zinnia (Zinnia elegans). However, it i s not known whether this i s a general pattern in dicot plants. To address this question, polyclonal antibodies against zinnia recombinant CCoAOMT fusion protein were raised and used for immuno...

Background Our knowledge of signaling mechanisms involved in secondary cell wall (SCW) formation is quite limited. To discover novel markers of SCW, a genomics approach using Zinnia elegans xylogenic cultures was undertaken that identified hundreds of gene candidates expressed at the onset of secondary wall formation [1]. Arabidopsis homologs and the corresponding T-DNA mutants for each Zinnia ...

As the first step toward understanding the involvement of endogenous brassinosteroids (BRs) in cytodifferentiation, we analyzed biosynthetic activities of BRs in zinnia (Zinnia elegans L. cv Canary Bird) cells differentiating into tracheary elements. The results of feeding experiments suggested that both the early and late C6-oxidation pathways occur during tracheary element differentiation. Ga...

In maturation process of tracheary element (TE) differentiation, many hydrolases are activated to execute programmed cell death of TEs. Such hydrolases are released from maturing TEs into extracellular space. The release of hydrolases should be harmful to surrounding cells. The TED4 protein, a tentative plant non-specific lipid transfer protein that is expressed preferentially in TE-induced cul...

Plants have a unique transdifferentiation mechanism by which differentiated cells can initiate a new program of differentiation. We used a comprehensive analysis of gene expression in an in vitro zinnia (Zinnia elegans L.) culture model system to gather fundamental information about the gene regulation underlying the transdifferentiation of plant cells. In this model, photosynthetic mesophyll c...

The Zinnia elegans mesophyll cell culture is a useful system for xylogenesis studies. The system is associated with highly synchronous tracheary element (TE) differentiation, making it more suitable for molecular studies requiring larger amounts of molecular isolates, such as mRNA and proteins and for studying cellulose synthesis. There is, however, the problem of non-uniformity and significant...