Formation of the vascular cylinder, a structure critical to water and nutrient transport in higher plants, is highly regulated. Here we identify WRKY15 as an important regulator that suppresses tracheary element (TE) differentiation in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Overexpression of WRKY15 resulted in discontinuous protoxylem vessel files and TEs with reduced spiral wall thickening/lignification. Expression of a dominant-negative WRKY15 variant, WRKY15-EAR, led to extra protoxylem vessels and ectopic TEs with increased spiral wall thickening/lignification. Ectopic TE formation in the root cortex and hypocotyl/leaf epidermis reveals that the suppression of WRKY15 is sufficient to trigger the transdifferentiation of other types of cells to TEs. Expression profiling, RT-qPCR, and reporter analyses revealed that WRKY15 suppresses the expression of VASCULAR-RELATED NAC DOMAIN7 (VND7), a master transcriptional regulator that promotes TE differentiation. We propose that WRKY15 negatively regulates VND7 expression indirectly based on (1) the absence of a W-box in the promoter of VND7 and (2) the observation that WRKY15 and VND7 are expressed in different cells in the vascular cylinder, with WRKY15 expressed in the procambial cells and VND7 in the protoxylem poles of procambium and differentiating TEs. Future research is needed to reveal the details underlying the interaction of WRKY15 and VND7 in plant vascular development.
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