*4.3. RNA Extraction and Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qRT-PCR)*

Total RNAs were extracted from maize tissue using an RNAprep plant kit (Tiangen, Beijing, China), and cDNA was synthesized as previously described [18]. The qRT-PCR was performed with

SuperReal PreMix Plus (Tiangen, Beijing, China) by an ABI Prism 7500 system (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). The specific primers of *ZmWRKY106* are listed in Supplementary Table S1. Each PCR was repeated three times and data were analyzed, as previously described [50].
