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. How gene expression, including targets of those miRNAs, differs between the two phases remains an open question. Here, we compare transcript levels 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 salicylic acid and jasmonic 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 in expression of miR156-encoding loci in maize seedlings. We hypothesize that the stresses associated with germination promote juvenile patterns of differentiation in maize.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 April 2017.
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