Phosphorus deficiency is one of the major factors limiting plant growth and grain yield. Improving plant tolerance to Pi deficiency through genetic mechanism is an important source to increase grain yield. In this study, bioinformatics analysis, expression, and natural variation in ZmNAC134 gene with low Pi tolerant traits were analyzed under low Pi conditions. A total of 177 diverse heterotic groups of maize inbreds were used to identify the nucleotide diversity and alleles of ZmNAC134, which plays a vital role in the regulation of root architecture in response to Pi deficiency evolutionary results showed that ZmNAC134 has 3 homologous genes and these genes have one exon and conserved domain. The phenotypic traits showed significant difference for each of the 22 traits under deficient and sufficient Pi conditions. A total of 27 SNPs were identified in the coding region of ZmNAC134 and no InDels among 177 inbred lines. Among 27 SNPs, a total of 8 sites were highly significantly associated with multiple traits of low Pi tolerant trait index at − log10 P = 3.43. Although, 7 sites under Pi normal and 9 sites under Pi deficient conditions, of which four synonymous sites (position S24, S82, S164, and S1037) were associated with diverse number of traits in low Pi and normal Pi conditions and LD was not tight among these sites. Furthermore, the expression pattern was compared between Pi tolerant 178 and Pi sensitive 9782 inbred lines. ZmNAC134 was highly up-regulated in the roots and leaves of Pi tolerant 178 inbred line at 3 days, 7 days, and 9 days in roots and 7 days and 12 days in leaves while down-regulated in roots and leaves of Pi sensitive 9782 inbred line. In addition, protein encoded by ZmNAC134 was located in both nucleus and cytoplasm. Our findings provide the new insight of ZmNAC134 gene involved in low Pi stress and responsible against low Pi condition and the significant association of polymorphic loci with traits could be helpful to find out the molecular marker for genetic resources for further molecular maize breeding program.

中文翻译：

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ZmNAC134基因对玉米苗期耐磷性状响应的鉴定、关联及表达分析

缺磷是限制植物生长和粮食产量的主要因素之一。通过遗传机制提高植物对缺磷的耐受性是提高粮食产量的重要来源。本研究在低磷条件下分析了具有低磷耐受性状的 ZmNAC134 基因的生物信息学分析、表达和自然变异。总共使用 177 个不同的玉米自交系杂种优势组来鉴定 ZmNAC134 的核苷酸多样性和等位基因，ZmNAC134 在响应缺磷的根结构调节中起着至关重要的作用 进化结果表明 ZmNAC134 有 3 个同源基因，这些基因有一个外显子和保守结构域。在磷不足和磷充足的条件下，22 个性状中的每一个的表型性状都显示出显着差异。在ZmNAC134的编码区共鉴定出27个SNP，在177个自交系中没有发现InDels。在 27 个 SNP 中，共有 8 个位点与低耐磷性状指数的多个性状高度显着相关，-log10 P = 3.43。虽然，Pi正常条件下的7个站点和Pi缺乏条件下的9个站点，其中四个同义站点（位置S24、S82、S164和S1037）在低Pi和正常Pi条件下与不同数量的性状相关并且LD不紧密在这些网站中。此外，比较了耐 Pi 178 和 Pi 敏感 9782 自交系之间的表达模式。ZmNAC134在耐磷178自交系的根和叶中在第3天、第7天和第9天在根中以及在叶中的第7天和第12天高度上调，而在Pi敏感9782自交系的根和叶中下调线。此外，ZmNAC134 编码的蛋白质位于细胞核和细胞质中。我们的研究结果为 ZmNAC134 基因参与低磷胁迫和应对低磷条件提供了新的见解，多态位点与性状的显着关联可能有助于为进一步的玉米分子育种计划寻找遗传资源的分子标记。