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Physiological and transcriptional response to heat stress in heat-resistant and heat-sensitive maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines at seedling stage

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Abstract

To understand the molecular and physiological mechanism underlying the heat stress in maize, transcriptional and physiological response to heat stress in the heat-resistant Huangzaosi (HZS) and heat-sensitive Lv-9-Kuan (L9K) inbred lines at seedling stage were analyzed and compared at seedling stage. Our results indicated that MDA content of the two inbred lines increased significantly under heat stress; the values of MDA in L9K was significantly higher than that in HZS. The level of SOD, CAT, and POD enzyme activities in HZS was higher than those in L9K for both the heat-treated group and controls. The values of Fv/Fm, qP, and ФPSII reduced by heat stress in L9K were higher than the respective values in HZS. RNA-seq data showed that heat stress induced more heat stress-related genes in HZS (257 heat stress-related genes) than in L9K (224 heat stress-related genes). GO and KEGG enrichment analyses indicated that HZS and L9K changed their physiological and biochemical mechanisms in response to heat stress through different molecular mechanisms. Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis showed that HZS might obtain stronger heat resistance than L9K through a unique transcriptional regulatory network. Our findings provide insights into the molecular networks that mediate the tolerance of maize heat stress and also help us to mine key heat stress-related genes.

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Abbreviations

SOD:

Superoxide dismutase

CAT:

Catalase

MDA:

Malondialdehyde

PRO:

Proline

GSH:

Glutathione

APX:

Ascorbate peroxidase

POD:

Peroxidase

GO:

Gene ontology

KEGG:

Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome

DEG:

Differentially expressed gene

qPCR:

Quantitative PCR

FC:

Fold change

BP:

Biological process

CC:

Cellular component

MF:

Molecular function

MAPK:

Mitogen-activated protein kinase

CDPK:

Calcium-dependent protein kinase

TF:

Transcriptional factor

HSP:

Heat shock protein

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

WGCNA:

Weighted gene co-expression network analysis

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Author contribution statement

DCW and GS conceived and designed research. JFZ, ZZS, WW, CY, and SBX conducted experiments. DW, CYW, and ZRD contributed new reagents or analytical tools. DCW and JFZ analyzed data and wrote the manuscript. GS edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2017YFD0300402-3, 2016YFD0300205-03), Anhui Natural Science Foundation (S202002b04020579), Anhui Province’s Fund for Introducing Leading Talents from Universities.

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  1. De-Chuan Wu and Jia-Fei Zhu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agronomy, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui, China

    De-Chuan Wu, Jia-Fei Zhu, Zhong-Ze Shu, Wei Wang, Cheng Yan, Shan-Bin Xu, De-Xiang Wu, Cheng-Yu Wang & Zhao-rong Dong

  2. Biology Department, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Genlou Sun

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  1. De-Chuan Wu
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Correspondence to Genlou Sun.

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Wu, DC., Zhu, JF., Shu, ZZ. et al. Physiological and transcriptional response to heat stress in heat-resistant and heat-sensitive maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines at seedling stage. Protoplasma 257, 1615–1637 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01538-5

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