Transcriptome analysis of drought-responsive and drought-tolerant mechanisms in maize leaves under drought stress.

Maize is a major crop essential for food and feed, but its production is threatened by various biotic and abiotic stresses. Drought is one of the most common abiotic stresses, causing severe crop yield reduction. Although several studies have been devoted to selecting drought-tolerant maize lines and detecting the drought-responsive mechanism of maize, the transcriptomic differences between drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible maize lines are still largely unknown.

Effects of oat ( L.) hay diet supplementation on the intestinal microbiome and metabolome of Small-tail Han sheep.

Supplementation of the sheep diet with oats ( L.) improves animal growth and meat quality, however effects on intestinal microbes and their metabolites was not clear. This study aimed to establish the effect of dietary oat supplementation on rumen and colonic microbial abundance and explore the relationship with subsequent changes in digesta metabolites.

Mutation in Mg-Protoporphyrin IX Monomethyl Ester (Oxidative) Cyclase Gene Causes Chlorophyll-Deficiency in Maize.

Chlorophyll molecules are non-covalently associated with chlorophyll-binding proteins to harvest light and perform charge separation vital for energy conservation during photosynthetic electron transfer in photosynthesis for photosynthetic organisms. The present study characterized a () maize mutant controlled by a single recessive gene causing chlorophyll reduction throughout the whole life cycle. Through positional mapping and complementation allelic test, () with two missense mutations (p.

E183K Mutation in Chalcone Synthase C2 Causes Protein Aggregation and Maize Colorless.

Flavonoids give plants their rich colors and play roles in a number of physiological processes. In this study, we identified a novel colorless maize mutant showing reduced pigmentation throughout the whole life cycle by EMS mutagenesis. E183K mutation in maize chalcone synthase C2 (ZmC2) was mapped using MutMap strategy as the causal for colorless, which was further validated by transformation in Arabidopsis.

Transcriptomic analysis reveals somatic embryogenesis-associated signaling pathways and gene expression regulation in maize (Zea mays L.).

Transcriptome analysis of maize embryogenic callus and somatic embryos reveals associated genes reprogramming, hormone signaling pathways and transcriptional regulation involved in somatic embryogenesis in maize. Somatic embryos are widely utilized in propagation and genetic engineering of crop plants. In our laboratory, an elite maize inbred line Y423 that could generate intact somatic embryos was obtained and applied to genetic transformation.

iTRAQ-Based Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Embryogenic and Non-embryogenic Calli Derived from a Maize ( L.) Inbred Line Y423.

Somatic embryos (SE) have potential to rapidly form a whole plant. Generally, SE is thought to be derived from embryogenic calli (EC). However, in maize, not only embryogenic calli (EC, can generate SE) but also nonembryogenic calli (NEC, can't generate SE) can be induced from immature embryos.

iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic analysis reveals new metabolic pathways responding to chilling stress in maize seedlings.

Unlabelled: To date, transcriptome profile analysis of maize seedlings in response to cold stress have been well documented; however, changes in protein species abundance of maize seedlings in response to cold stress are still unknown. Herein, leaves from the maize inbred line W9816 (a cold-resistance genotype) were harvested at three-leaf stage, and were used to identify the differential abundance protein species (DAPS) between chilling stress (4°C) and control conditions (25°C). iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic were used in this study.

Isolation and functional characterization of a cold responsive phosphatidylinositol transfer-associated protein, ZmSEC14p, from maize (Zea may L.).

A Sec14-like protein, ZmSEC14p , from maize was structurally analyzed and functionally tested. Overexpression of ZmSEC14p in transgenic Arabidopsis conferred tolerance to cold stress. Sec14-like proteins are involved in essential biological processes, such as phospholipid metabolism, signal transduction, membrane trafficking, and stress response.

Histological and transcript analyses of intact somatic embryos in an elite maize (Zea mays L.) inbred line Y423.

Intact somatic embryos were obtained from an elite maize inbred line Y423, bred in our laboratory. Using 13-day immature embryos after self-pollination as explants, and after 4-5 times subculture, a large number of somatic embryos were detected on the surface of the embryonic calli on the medium. The intact somatic embryos were transferred into the differential medium, where the plantlets regenerated with shoots and roots forming simultaneously.

Genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), an ultimate marker-assisted selection (MAS) tool to accelerate plant breeding.

Marker-assisted selection (MAS) refers to the use of molecular markers to assist phenotypic selections in crop improvement. Several types of molecular markers, such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), have been identified and effectively used in plant breeding. The application of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies has led to remarkable advances in whole genome sequencing, which provides ultra-throughput sequences to revolutionize plant genotyping and breeding.