Lan Qian, He Guanhua, Wang Dongmei, Li Shen, Jiang Yufeng, Guan Honghui, Li Yongxiang, Liu Xuyang, Wang Tianyu, Li Yu, Zhang Dengfeng, Li Chunhui
State Key Laboratory of Crop Gene Resources and Breeding, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
Maize Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning 530007, China.
Plant Sci. 2025 Mar;352:112355. doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2024.112355. Epub 2024 Dec 11.
Drought stress damages the growth and development of maize, which results in the maize yield reduction. A strong root system improves the drought tolerance in maize. A previous genome-wide association study for the maize seminal root length under drought stress conditions identified a significant SNP, which was located in the ZmEULD1b gene. Here, we show that enhancing ZmEULD1b expression in transgenic maize increases seminal root length, as well as plant tolerance to water deficit. Meanwhile, ZmEULD1b overexpression influences the stomatal development and promotes water-use efficiency of maize. Further, transcriptome analysis of wild type and ZmEULD1b-OE plants show that several peroxidases and ABA-related pathway genes are upregulated in the ZmEULD1b-OE plants under drought stress conditions. Additionally, rhizosphere microbiota analyses of plant root confirm that overexpression of ZmEULD1b improves the abundance of growth-promoting microbes in the maize root system under drought stress conditions. Collectively, the data presented in this work suggest that ZmEULD1b could be a valuable gene resource or selection target for the drought-tolerant genetic improvement of maize.
干旱胁迫会损害玉米的生长发育，导致玉米产量下降。强大的根系可提高玉米的耐旱性。先前一项针对干旱胁迫条件下玉米种子根长度的全基因组关联研究鉴定出一个位于ZmEULD1b基因中的显著单核苷酸多态性（SNP）。在此，我们表明在转基因玉米中增强ZmEULD1b的表达会增加种子根长度以及植株对水分亏缺的耐受性。同时，ZmEULD1b的过表达会影响气孔发育并提高玉米的水分利用效率。此外，对野生型和ZmEULD1b过表达植株的转录组分析表明，在干旱胁迫条件下，ZmEULD1b过表达植株中有几种过氧化物酶和脱落酸相关途径基因上调。另外，对植物根系的根际微生物群分析证实，ZmEULD1b的过表达在干旱胁迫条件下提高了玉米根系中促进生长微生物的丰度。总体而言，这项工作所呈现的数据表明，ZmEULD1b可能是用于玉米耐旱遗传改良的宝贵基因资源或选择靶点。
