Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bio-Energy Crops, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, No. 333 Nanchen Road, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
Plant Cell Rep. 2010 Jun;29(6):545-59. doi: 10.1007/s00299-010-0843-7. Epub 2010 Mar 25.
Maize seeds are an important source of food, animal feed, and industrial raw materials. To understand global gene expression and regulation during maize seed development, a normalized cDNA library, covering most of the developmental stages of maize seeds, was constructed. Sequencing analysis of 10,848 randomly selected clones identified 6,630 unique ESTs. Among them, 57 putative transcription factors (TFs) were identified. The TFs belong to seven different super-families, specifically 17 Zinc-finger, 13 bZIP, 8 bHLH, 6 MADS, 7 MYB, 3 Homedomain, and 3 AP2/EREBP. The spatial and temporal expression of the TFs was analyzed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR with representative tissue types and seeds at different developmental stages, revealing their diverse expression patterns and expression levels. One-third (19) of the maize TFs was found their putative orthologs in Arabidopsis. Similar expression patterns were observed in both maize and Arabidopsis for the majority of orthologous pairs (15 out of 19), suggesting their conserved functions during seed development. In conclusion, the systematic analysis of maize seed TFs has provided valuable insight into transcriptional regulation during maize seed development.
玉米种子是食物、动物饲料和工业原料的重要来源。为了了解玉米种子发育过程中的全球基因表达和调控，构建了一个覆盖玉米种子大部分发育阶段的标准化 cDNA 文库。对随机挑选的 10848 个克隆进行测序分析，鉴定出 6630 个独特的 ESTs。其中，鉴定出 57 个假定转录因子（TFs）。这些 TFs 属于七个不同的超家族，具体为 17 个锌指、13 个 bZIP、8 个 bHLH、6 个 MADS、7 个 MYB、3 个同源域和 3 个 AP2/EREBP。通过半定量 RT-PCR 分析了 TFs 在不同组织类型和不同发育阶段的种子中的时空表达情况，揭示了它们多样化的表达模式和表达水平。在拟南芥中发现了三分之一（19 个）的玉米 TFs 的假定直系同源物。大多数（19 个中的 15 个）直系同源对在玉米和拟南芥中表现出相似的表达模式，表明它们在种子发育过程中具有保守的功能。总之，对玉米种子 TFs 的系统分析为玉米种子发育过程中的转录调控提供了有价值的见解。
