Transcriptomic response of maize primary roots to low temperatures at seedling emergence
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Agricultural Science, Plant Science
- Keywords
- maize, cold stress, chilling tolerance, transcriptome, roots, low temperature
- Copyright
- © 2016 Di Fenza et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Transcriptomic response of maize primary roots to low temperatures at seedling emergence. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2372v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2372v1
Abstract
Background. Maize (Zea mays) is C 4 tropical cereal and its adaptation to temperate climates can be problematic due to low soil temperatures at early stages of establishment. Methods. We report on a physiological and transcriptomic experiment on twelve maize varieties from a chilling condition adapted gene pool which identified four genotypes with significant contrasting chilling tolerance.These four varieties were subject to microarray analysis to identify up and down regulated genes under chilling conditions. Results. Stress induced by low temperature in the varieties Picker,PR39B29, Fergus and Codisco was reflected only in the expression profiles of the varieties Picker and PR39B29. No significant changes in expression were observed in Fergus and Codisco upon chilling stress. The overall number of genes up and down regulated in the two chilling tolerant varieties amounted to69. These two varieties exhibited two different trancriptomic patterns in which only four genes were shared, although not all with the same degree of regulation. Overall the expression pattern was similar between the two chilling tolerant varieties, indicating a common response to chilling stress. Discussion. Varieties with an enhanced root/shoot growth ratio under low temperature were more tolerant which could be an early and inexpensive measure for germ plasm screening. We have identified novel cold inducible genes in an already adapted maize breeding gene pool. This illustrates that further varietal selection for enhanced chilling tolerance is possible in an already preselected gene pool.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Supplemental Materials Table 1
Maize varieties included in this study. Maize varieties differed in the type of kernel and maturity group. Some varieties were included in the Irish Recommended List 2008 for showing high performance under Irish climate conditions. (*varieties included in the Irish Recommended List 2008 suitable for growing in the open/without plastic; **varieties included in the Irish Recommended List 2008 suitable for growing covered/with plastic; varieties marked in bold were included in the microarray study).
Supplemental Materials Table 2
Housekeeping gene information: Name of gene, accession number and bibliographic reference.
Supplemental Materials Table 3
Differential expressed genes in cultivar PR39B29
Supplemental Materials Table 4
Differential expressed genes in cultivar Picker