ABSTRACT: Heterosis is the phenomenon whereby the progeny of particular inbred lines have enhanced agronomic performance relative to both parents. Although several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this fundamental biological phenomenon, the responsible molecular mechanisms have not been determined. The maize inbred lines B73 and Mo17 produce a heterotic F1 hybrid. Global patterns of gene expression were compared in seedlings of these three genotypes using a microarray that contains 13,999 cDNAs. Using an estimated 15% false discovery rate as a cut-off, 1,367 ESTs (9.8%) were identified as being significantly differentially expressed among genotypes. All possible modes of gene action were observed, including additivity, high- and low-parent dominance, under-dominance, and over-dominance. The largest proportion of the ESTs (78%, 1,062/1,367) exhibited expression patterns that are not statistically distinguishable from additivity. Even so, 22% of the differentially regulated genes exhibited non-additive modes of gene expression. Classified on the basis of significant pair-wise comparisons of genotype means, 181 of these 305 genes exhibited high-parent dominance and 23 exhibited low-parent dominance. In addition, 44 genes exhibited under- or over-dominant gene action. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that multiple molecular mechanisms contribute to heterosis, including over-dominance Keywords: Genotype Comparison The inbreds B73 (Schnable Lab Accession #660) and Mo17 (Schnable Lab Accession #2618) used in this study were derived by self-pollination from stocks originally obtained from Don Robertson (Iowa State University) and Mike Lee (Iowa State University), respectively. Mo17 was crossed as a female by B73 to generate the F1. Kernels from three different seed sources (ears) per genotype were used in the experimental design. Prior to microarray analyses genotypes were confirmed by genotyping DNA extracted from each seed source using co-dominant IDP genetic markers that distinguish B73 from Mo17 (Fu et al., in preparation). Ten biological replications of B73, Mo17, and their F1 (Mo17xB73) were grown under highly controlled conditions in a randomized complete block design. For each replication, the B73, Mo17, and F1 samples were hybridized to three two-color cDNA microarrays using a loop design such that each loop included all pairwise comparisons between genotypes. RNA pools for each genotype were alternately labeled providing dye balance within each loop. After hybridization, one biological replicate was removed due to poor quality. The final analysis incorporated 27 microarray slides (3 slides for each of nine high-quality biological replicates).