Molecular mechanisms underlying the establishment and maintenance of vascular stem cells in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The vascular system plays pivotal roles in transporting water and nutrients throughout the plant body. Primary vasculature is established as a continuous strand, which subsequently initiates secondary growth through cell division. Key factors regulating primary and secondary vascular development have been identified in numerous studies, and the regulatory networks including these factors have been elucidated through omics-based approaches. However, the vascular system is composed of a variety of cells such as xylem and phloem cells, which are commonly generated from vascular stem cells. In addition, the vasculature is located deep inside the plant body, which makes it difficult to investigate the vascular development while distinguishing between vascular stem cells and developing xylem and phloem cells. Recent technical advances in tissue clearing method, RNA-seq analysis and tissue culture system overcome these problems by enabling the cell type-specific analysis during vascular development, especially with a special focus on stem cells. In this review, we summarize the recent findings on the establishment and maintenance of vascular stem cells.