The extraordinarily long stigmatic silks of corn (Zea mays L.) are critical for grain production but the biology of their growth and emergence from husk leaves has remained underexplored. Accordingly, gene expression was assayed for inbreds ‘B73’ and ‘Mo17’ across five contiguous silk sections. Half of the maize genes (∼20,000) are expressed in silks, mostly in spatiotemporally dynamic patterns. In particular, emergence triggers strong differential expression of ∼1,500 genes collectively enriched for gene ontology terms associated with abiotic and biotic stress responses, hormone signaling, cell–cell communication, and defense metabolism. Further, a meta‐analysis of published maize transcriptomic studies on seedling stress showed that silk emergence elicits an upregulated transcriptomic response that overlaps strongly with both abiotic and biotic stress responses. Although the two inbreds revealed similar silk transcriptomic programs overall, genotypic expression differences were observed for 5,643 B73–Mo17 syntenic gene pairs and collectively account for >50% of genome‐wide expression variance. Coexpression clusters, including many based on genotypic divergence, were identified and interrogated via ontology‐term enrichment analyses to generate biological hypotheses for future research. Ultimately, dissecting how gene expression changes along the length of silks and between husk‐encased and emerged states offers testable models for silk development and plant response to environmental stresses.

中文翻译：

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多基因型玉米丝表达图谱揭示了从壳叶中出现后如何减轻与暴露相关的应激


玉米（ Zea mays L.）极长的柱头丝对于粮食生产至关重要，但其生长和从壳叶中出现的生物学仍未得到充分研究。因此，对五个连续丝切片中的近交体“B73”和“Mo17”的基因表达进行了分析。一半的玉米基因（~20,000）在蚕丝中表达，大部分以时空动态模式表达。特别是，出现引发约 1,500 个基因的强烈差异表达，这些基因共同丰富了与非生物和生物应激反应、激素信号传导、细胞间通讯和防御代谢相关的基因本体术语。此外，对已发表的玉米幼苗应激转录组研究的荟萃分析表明，吐丝引起转录组反应上调，与非生物和生物应激反应强烈重叠。尽管这两个近交系总体上揭示了相似的丝转录组程序，但在 5,643 个 B73-Mo17 同线基因对中观察到基因型表达差异，并且总共占全基因组表达方差的 50% 以上。通过本体术语富集分析来识别和询问共表达簇，包括许多基于基因型分歧的簇，以生成用于未来研究的生物学假设。最终，剖析基因表达如何沿着丝的长度以及在外壳包裹和出现的状态之间变化，为丝的发育和植物对环境胁迫的反应提供了可测试的模型。