Overexpression of VND1 to VND5 causes ectopic deposition of secondary wall components in transgenic Arabidopsis stems.

<p>Cross sections of stems were stained for lignin with phloroglucinol-HCl, xylan with the LM10 xylan antibody, and cellulose with Calcofluor White. (A) VND1 to VND5 overexpression caused a reduction in shoot growth compared with the wild type. (B) Quantitative PCR analysis showing <i>VND</i> expression in their overexpression lines. The expression level of corresponding <i>VND</i> genes in the wild type is set to 1. Error bars denote SE of three biological replicates. (C) to (H) Lignin staining of stem sections showing ectopic lignin deposition in epidermis, cortical cells or pith cells (arrows) in VND overexpressors (D to H) compared with the wild type (C). (I) to (K) Xylan staining of stem sections showing ectopic xylan deposition in epidermal and cortical cells (arrows) in VND3 (J) and VND4 (K) overexpressors compared with the wild type (I). (L) to (N) Cellulose staining of stem sections showing ectopic cellulose deposition in epidermal and cortical cells (arrows) in VND3 (M) and VND4 (N) overexpressors compared with the wild type (L). co, cortex; ep, epidermis; if, interfascicular fiber; pf, phloem fiber; pi, pith; xy, xylem. Bars = 220 µm in (C) to (H) and 182 µm in (I) to (N).