Transcriptional responses of maize seedling root to phosphorus starvation

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays) is the most widely cultivated crop around the world, however, it is commonly affected by phosphate (Pi) deficiency and the underlying molecular basis of responses mechanism is still unknown. In this study, the transcriptional response of maize roots to Pi starvation at 3 days after the onset of Pi deprivation was assessed. The investigation revealed a total of 283 Pi-responsive genes, of which 199 and 84 genes were found to be either up- or down-regulated respectively, by 2-fold or more. Pi-responsive genes were found to be involved in sugar and nitrogen metabolic pathways, ion transport, signal transduction, transcriptional regulation, and other processes related to growth and development. In addition, the expression patterns of maize inorganic phosphorus transporters, acid phosphatase, phytase, 2-deoxymugineic acid synthase1, POD and MYB transcription factor were validated in 178 roots response to low phosphorus stress. of which, two genes encoding phytase and acid phosphatase were significantly induced by Pi deficiency and may play a pivotal role in the process of absorption and re-utilization of Pi in Maize. These results not only enhance our knowledge about molecular processes associated with Pi deficiency, but also facilitate the identification of key molecular determinants for improving Pi use in maize. Moreover, this work sets a framework to produce Pi-specific maize microarrays to study the changes in global gene expression between Pi-efficient and Pi-inefficient maize genotypes.

Metabolite profiling and genome‐wide association studies reveal response mechanisms of phosphorus deficiency in maize seedling

“…Among the maize germplasms screened, the six most stable or known low‐Pi‐resistant and six low‐Pi‐sensitive maize inbred lines were isolated for metabolomics analysis. In previous studies, the experimental maize inbred lines Pi‐resistant maize inbred line 178 and Pi‐sensitive maize inbred line 9782 were frequently used (Table ) (Lin et al ., ; Su et al ., ; Wu et al ., ).…”

Improving crop nutrient efficiency through root architecture modifications

“…Recently, there have been an increasing number of published studies on the genetic, molecular and physiological regulation for root architecture as related to plant nutrient efficiency. A number of genes have been identified in Arabidopsis (Mlodzińska et al ), maize (Li et al ; Lin et al ), rice (Wu and Wang ) and soybean (Guo et al ), which are involved in changing root architecture to facilitate enhanced nutrient acquisition. Additionally, regulators including transcription factors (Devaiah et al ; Miura et al ; Dai et al ), proteins (Araya et al ) and miRNAs (Meng et al ; Vidal et al ) have also been demonstrated to participate in regulatory networks linking root architecture to nutrient efficiency.…”

Identification and selection of low-phosphate-tolerant germplasm in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)

“…They are also generated and accumulated rapidly under P stress, which is considered to cause extensive oxidative damage to biological macromolecules (Wang et al 2012). Antioxidative enzymes play a vital role in scavenging ROS, especially superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) (Guo et al 2005;Lin et al 2013;Fu et al 2014;Grad et al 2014). Malondialdehyde (MDA) (Ding et al 2014) is the end product of lipid oxidation by ROS, and catalase (CAT) (Iannone et al 2015) can transfer two electrons to protect cells from hydrogen peroxide.…”