Dataset Information

Stress and juvenility in maize

ABSTRACT: As maize (Zea mays) plants undergo vegetative phase change from juvenile to adult, they both exhibit heteroblasty, an abrupt change in patterns of leaf morphogenesis, and gain the ability to produce flowers. Both processes are under the control of microRNA 156, whose levels decline at the end of the juvenile phase. Gain of ability to flower is conferred by expression of miR156 targets that encode Squamosa Promoter-Binding (SBP) transcription factors, which when derepressed in the adult phase induce the expression of MADS-box transcription factors that promote maturation and flowering. What gene expression differences underlie heteroblasty, as well as what regulates miR156 levels, remain open questions. Here, we compare gene expression in primordia that will develop into juvenile or adult leaves to identify genes that define these two developmental states and may influence vegetative phase change. In comparisons among successive leaves at the same developmental stage of plastochron 6, three-fourths of approximately 1,100 differentially expressed genes were more highly expressed in primordia of juvenile leaves. This juvenile set was enriched in photosynthetic genes, particularly those associated with cyclic electron flow at photosystem I, and in genes involved in oxidative stress and retrograde redox signaling. Pathogen- and herbivory-responsive pathways including jasmonic acid and salicylic acid were also up-regulated in juvenile primordia and indeed, exogenous application of jasmonic acid both delayed the appearance of adult traits and the decline of miR156 levels in maize seedlings. The successful amelioration of stress signals thus plays an important role in inducing vegetative phase change in maize.

ORGANISM(S): Zea mays

PROVIDER: GSE74295 | GEO | 2015/10/24

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA299645

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Dataset's files

Source:

			Action	DRS
		Other

Items per page:

1 - 1 of 1

Similar Datasets

Project description:Vegetative phase change is the developmental transition from the juvenile phase to the adult phase during which a plant becomes competent for sexual reproduction. Gain of ability to flower is often accompanied by changes in patterns of differentiation in newly forming vegetative organs. In maize, juvenile leaves differ from adult leaves in morphology, anatomy, and cell wall composition. Whereas the normal sequence of juvenile followed by adult is repeated with every sexual generation, this sequence can be altered in maize by the isolation and culture of the shoot apex from an adult phase plant; an âadultâ meristem so treated reverts to forming juvenile vegetative organs. To investigate the molecular differences between the juvenile and adult phases in maize comparisons among two juvenile samples, leaf 4 and culture-derived leaf 3 or 4, and an adult sample (leaf 9) were made using cDNA microarrays. All samples were leaf primordia at plastochron 6. A gene was scored as âphase specificâ if it was up- (or down-) regulated in both juvenile samples compared to the adult sample with at least a twofold-change in gene expression at P-value less than or equal to 0.005. Some 221 ESTs up-regulated in juvenile and 28 ESTs up-regulated in adult were identified. Altered patterns of expression of selected ESTs in the phase change mutants Tp2, d1 and gl15 further confirmed these genes as being phase-specific and allowed us to position these genes in the known genetic hierarchy regulating phase change. Keywords: Transcript profiling among seed-derived juvenile leaf 4 and adult leaf 9 and culture-rejuvenated leaf 3 or 4 in maize To identify juvenile or adult specific ESTs, total RNA from leaf primordia at plastochron 6 (P6) was isolated from leaves 4 (L4) and 9 (L9) from seed-derived plants and leaf 3 or 4 (RL3/4) from culture-derived plants. For each of six biological replications, each of the three pairwise comparisons of P6-staged leaf primordia from L4, L9 and RL3/4 was made on one slide. With six biological replications and three slides per replication (L4 vs. L9, L9 vs. RL3/4, RL3/4 vs. L4), this replicated loop design used a total of 18 slides. To ensure dye balance, each of the 18 target samples was measured once with Cy3 labeling and once with Cy5 labeling.

Project description:Background: A long juvenile period between germination and flowering is a common characteristic among fruit trees, including Malus hupehensis (Pamp.) Rehd., which is an apple rootstock widely used in China. microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in the regulation of phase transition and reproductive growth processes. Results: M. hupehensis RNA libraries, one adult and one juvenile phase, were constructed using tree leaves and underwent high-throughput sequencing. We identified 42 known miRNA families and 172 novel miRNAs. We also identified 127 targets for 25 known miRNA families and 168 targets for 35 unique novel miRNAs using degradome sequencing. The identified miRNA targets were categorized into 58 biological processes, and the 123 targets of known miRNAs were associated with phase transition processes. The KEGG analysis revealed that these targets were involved in starch and sucrose metabolism, and plant hormone signal transduction. Expression profiling of miRNAs and their targets indicated multiple regulatory functions in the phase transition. The higher expression level of mdm-miR156 and lower expression level of mdm-miR172 in the juvenile phase leaves implied that these two small miRNAs regulated the phase transition. mdm-miR160 and miRNA393, which regulate genes involved in auxin signal transduction, could also be involved in controlling this process. The identification of known and novel miRNAs and their targets provides new information on this regulatory process in M. hupehensis, which will contribute to the understanding of miRNA functions during growth, phase transition and reproduction in woody fruit trees. Conclusions: A comprehensive study on M. hupehensis miRNAs related to the juvenile to adult phase transition was performed. The combination of sRNA and degradome sequencing can be used to better illustrate the profiling of hormone-regulated miRNAs and miRNA targets involving complex regulatory networks, which will contribute to the understanding of miRNA functions during growth, phase transition and reproductive growth in perennial woody fruit trees.

Project description:We were interested in identifying targets of novel putative miRNAs we identified from small RNA sequencing libraries of Arabidopsis shoots. The small RNA (smRNA) sequencing libraries were made to identify changes in abundance of specific smRNAs in response to developmental transitions in Arabidopsis thaliana shoots, with special focus on vegetative phase change. We specifically wanted to separate the temporal changes in gene expression that result from vegetative phase change and those from flowering. Because of the close timing between the juvenile-to-adult and adult-to-reproductive developmental transitions in Arabidopsis grown under long day conditions, we used the late-flowering genotype FRI;FLC developed by the lab of Richard Amasino by introgressing the FRI allele from Sf-2 into the Col-0 genetic background, which is fri;FLC. For the early flowering genotype, we used FRI;flc-3, also developed by the Amasino lab by EMS-mutagenizing FRI;FLC, identifying early flowering mutants, and backcrossing multiple times to eliminate other EMS-induced mutations. The onset of vegetative phase change in FRI;FLC and FRI;flc-3 under our growth conditions was identical, but the progression was slower in FRI;FLC. By sequencing small RNAs from shoot apices at different time points and fully-expanded leaves at different positions on the shoot and comparing the results between the two genotypes, we were able to obtain a clear picture of changes in small RNA abundance in response to vegetative phase change and flowering in Arabidopsis. We then used the remaining RNA to make genome-wide mapping of uncapped and cleaved transcripts (GMUCT) 2.0 libraries of a subset of our samples. GMUCT 2.0 allows you to identify RNAs that are 1) uncapped and in the process of 5’->3’ exonuclease degradation and 2) miRNA and siRNA-mediated cleavage products. We wanted to use these GMUCT 2.0 libraries to identify targets of novel putative miRNAs discovered by our smRNA sequencing, thereby supporting the idea that these novel putative miRNAs are in fact functional.

Dataset Information

Stress and juvenility in maize

Dataset's files

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets