Uncovering the Gene Regulatory Network of Maize Hybrid ZD309 under Heat Stress by Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Analysis

Abstract

Maize is an important cereal crop but is sensitive to heat stress, which significantly restricts its grain yield. To explore the molecular mechanism of maize heat tolerance, a heat-tolerant hybrid ZD309 and its parental lines (H39_1 and M189) were subjected to heat stress, followed by transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses. After six-day-heat treatment, the growth of ZD309 and its parental lines were suppressed, showing dwarf stature and rolled leaf compared with the control plants. ZD309 exhibited vigorous growth; however, M189 displayed superior heat tolerance. By transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis, hundreds to thousands of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and metabolites (DEMs) were identified. Notably, the female parent H39 shares more DEGs and DEMs with the hybrid ZD309, indicating more genetic gain derived from the female instead of the male. A total of 299 heat shock genes detected among three genotypes were greatly aggregated in sugar transmembrane transporter activity, plasma membrane, photosynthesis, protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, cysteine, and methionine metabolism. A total of 150 heat-responsive metabolites detected among three genotypes were highly accumulated, including jasmonic acid, amino acids, sugar, flavonoids, coumarin, and organic acids. Integrating transcriptomic and metabolomic assays revealed that plant hormone signal transduction, cysteine, and methionine metabolism, and α-linolenic acid metabolism play crucial roles in heat tolerance in maize. Our research will be facilitated to identify essential heat tolerance genes in maize, thereby contributing to breeding heat resistance maize varieties.

Transcriptome profiling of genes regulated by phosphate-solubilizing bacteria Bacillus megaterium P68 in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.)

“…Similarly, it has also been reported that DEGs in garlic are mainly distributed in the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis (sot00940) and plant hormone signal transduction (sot04075), which is related to both long and short daylight treatment ( Atif et al, 2021 ). The results in this study coincided with Liu et al (2022) who demonstrated that under the heat stress of maize for KEGG analysis, DEGs were mainly enriched in plant hormone signal transduction, alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism, ABC transporter, and zeatin biosynthesis.…”

Transcriptomic and alternative splicing analyses provide insights into the roles of exogenous salicylic acid ameliorating waxy maize seedling growth under heat stress

“…The photosynthetic machinery takes the brunt of the damage caused by HTS, making the photosynthetic system highly sensitive to HTS [57]. HTS primarily affects photosynthesis and the expression of photosynthesis-related genes by increasing the generation of ROS, destroying photosystem II [40,58]. In this work, HTS induced the downregulation of photosynthesis-related genes in both varieties (Fig.…”

“…Under the threat of climate change, improving the heat tolerance of maize is a particularly important goal in maize breeding. Studies have consistently shown that HTS is significantly damaging to the health, growth, and biomass accumulation of maize [39,40]. Maize subjected to HTS, both MDA and ROS are overproduced and accumulate in organelles, thereby causing oxidative damage [5].…”

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“…The supernatants were aspirated and added to new 96‐well plates after centrifugation at 4000 × g for 20 min. The samples were kept at −80°C until they were analyzed using liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC–MS) (Liu et al, 2022). Furthermore, pooled quality control (QC) samples were also prepared by combining 10 μl of each extraction mixture (LC‐BIO Technologies Co. Ltd.).…”