Combined transcriptome and metabolome analysis reveals the effects of light quality on maize hybrids

Weimin Zhan; Guanghui Guo; Lianhua Cui; Muhammad Abdul Rehman Rashid; Liangliang Jiang; Guanghua Sun; Jianping Yang; Yanpei Zhang

doi:10.1186/s12870-023-04059-4

Combined transcriptome and metabolome analysis reveals the effects of light quality on maize hybrids

BMC Plant Biol. 2023 Jan 18;23(1):41. doi: 10.1186/s12870-023-04059-4.

Authors

Weimin Zhan^#¹, Guanghui Guo^#², Lianhua Cui¹, Muhammad Abdul Rehman Rashid³, Liangliang Jiang¹, Guanghua Sun⁴, Jianping Yang⁵, Yanpei Zhang⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Wheat and Maize Crop Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, College of Agriculture, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, China.
³ Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad, 38000, Pakistan.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Wheat and Maize Crop Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China. sgh126@126.com.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Wheat and Maize Crop Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China. jpyang@henau.edu.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Wheat and Maize Crop Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, 450002, China. zhangyanpei@henau.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, refers to the phenotypic superiority of an F₁ hybrid relative to its parents in terms of growth rate, biomass production, grain yield, and stress tolerance. Light is an energy source and main environmental cue with marked impacts on heterosis in plants. Research into the production applications and mechanism of heterosis has been conducted for over a century and a half, but little is known about the effect of light on plant heterosis.

Results: In this study, an integrated transcriptome and metabolome analysis was performed using maize (Zea mays L.) inbred parents, B73 and Mo17, and their hybrids, B73 × Mo17 (BM) and Mo17 × B73 (MB), grown in darkness or under far-red, red, or blue light. Most differentially expressed genes (73.72-92.50%) and differentially accumulated metabolites (84.74-94.32%) exhibited non-additive effects in BM and MB hybrids. Gene Ontology analysis revealed that differential genes and metabolites were involved in glutathione transfer, carbohydrate transport, terpenoid biosynthesis, and photosynthesis. The darkness, far-red, red, and blue light treatments were all associated with phenylpropanoid-flavonoid biosynthesis by Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis. Five genes and seven metabolites related to phenylpropanoid-flavonoid biosynthesis pathway were identified as potential contributors to the interactions between maize heterosis and light conditions. Consistent with the strong mid-parent heterosis observed for metabolites, significant increases in both fresh and dry weights were found in the MB and BM hybrids compared with their inbred parents. Unexpectedly, increasing light intensity resulted in higher biomass heterosis in MB, but lower biomass heterosis in BM.

Conclusions: The transcriptomic and metabolomic results provide unique insights into the effects of light quality on gene expression patterns and genotype-environment interactions, and have implications for gene mining of heterotic loci to improve maize production.

Keywords: Differentially expressed pattern; Interaction network; Light quality; Maize; Non-additivity.

MeSH terms

Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Hybrid Vigor / genetics
Hybridization, Genetic
Metabolome
Transcriptome*
Zea mays* / metabolism