Maize leaves drought-responsive genes revealed by comparative transcriptome of two cultivars during the filling stage

Abstract

Like other important cereal crop in modern agricultural production, maize is also threatened by drought. And the drought stress during maize filling stage will directly affect the quality (protein or oil concentration) and also the weight of grain. Therefore, different from previous studies focusing on inbred lines and pot experiment at seedling stage, current study selected filling stage of the adult plant and planting maize in the experimental field. Two hybrids cultivars with different drought tolerant were used for drought and water treatment respectively. We performed transcriptome sequencing analysis of 4 groups, 12 samples, and obtained 651.08 million raw reads. Then the data were further processed by mapping to a reference genome, GO annotation, enrichment analysis and so on. Among them we focus on the different change trends of water treatment and drought treatment, and the different responses of two drought-tolerant cultivars to drought treatment. Through the analysis, several transcripts which encode nitrogen metabolic, protein phosphorylation, MYB,AP2/ERF, HB transcriptional factor, O-glycosyl hydrolases and organic acid metabolic process were implicated with maize drought stress. Our data will offer insights of the identification of genes involved in maize drought stress tolerance, which provides a theoretical basis for maize drought resistance breeding.

Phloem Exudate Protein Profiles during Drought and Recovery Reveal Abiotic Stress Responses in Tomato Vasculature

“…We observed a large decrease in abundance of an O-glycosyl hydrolase (GH) domain-containing protein Solyc05g050130. The GH protein family hydrolyzes carbohydrates from other molecules, and have been linked to many biological processes [ 77 ] but are most likely involved in cell wall modification [ 78 , 79 ]. Another substantially decreased phloem sap protein, the xyloglucan endotransglucosylase (XTH, Solyc03g093130), is also likely involved in cell wall development, and similar XTH proteins are known to be involved in vascular cell wall expansion in poplar [ 80 ].…”

Comparative proteomics analysis of two maize hybrids revealed drought-stress tolerance mechanisms

“…Seeds of the two hybrids were provided by the North China Key Laboratory for Crop Germplasm Resources of Education Ministry, Hebei Agricultural University, China. The detailed criteria on our selection of these hybrids are described in our recent study [34].…”

DIA (Data Independent Acquisition) proteomic based study on maize filling-kernel stage drought stress-responsive proteins and metabolic pathways

“…Two maize hybrids with dissimilar drought tolerance (drought-tolerant NongDan 476 and drought-sensitive ZhongXin 978) were used in this study [26]. The materials were provided by the laboratory (North China Key Laboratory for Crop Germplasm Resources of Education Ministry, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, China).…”

“…For instance, Guo et al [25] examined the transcriptomic changes induced by drought and salt stress in 8-week-old seedlings of Picea wilsonii via RNA-seq analysis. Previously, we conducted comparative RNA-seq transcriptome studies [26][27][28] and identified several candidate genes and metabolic pathways for drought tolerance in maize, including secondary metabolite biosynthesis related enzymes, such as probable Omethlytransfarase 2 (OMT2; Zm00001d019613) [28]; transcription factors (TF) such as MYBs, NAC and WRKYs; detoxification and stress responsive proteins including aquaporin PIP2-4 (Zm00001d017288), HSPs and GSTs [26][27][28]. However, transcriptome analysis of drought tolerance mechanisms is limited because mRNA translation levels are not always related to the corresponding protein levels and proteins are the direct bearers of biological function [29,30].…”