Breeding and Genetics of Maize

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Genetics, Genomics and Breeding".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2024 | Viewed by 572

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Research Institute of Biology and Agriculture, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: maize; plant architecture; high-temperature stress; high photosynthetic efficiency; molecular mechanism; genetic basis

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Guest Editor
College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
Interests: plant architecture development; abiotic stress response; nutrient use efficiency

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Maize (Zea mays. L) is one of the most important cereal crops in the world. Its cultivation history can be traced back to Mexico at least 4000 years ago, and it is widely cultivated worldwide. The germplasm resources of maize are rich, including maize varieties of different forms, colors, or nutrients. In order to meet the increasing food demands of people, maize breeding and genetic research are indispensable links in agricultural production, which covers mining genetic resources, the functional analysis of key genes, genetic breeding methods, and technical system improvements, including the traditional methods, such as selection, hybridization, germplasm improvement, and other means to improve the traits of maize varieties, and the modern methods to make more direct modifications to maize genes through gene editing and transformation technologies to ameliorate maize varieties quickly and precisely without large-scale changes to the genetic genome. With the development of molecular genetics and other related disciplines, the methods and techniques of maize breeding research are constantly innovative, which aim to explore more efficient and sustainable methods of maize breeding and genetic improvement and strive to develop more new varieties that are efficient, highly nutritious, and adaptable to different climatic conditions. This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in the breeding and genetics of maize, inviting all types of articles, such as research papers and methods, reviews, and opinions.

Prof. Dr. Yurong Xie
Dr. Xiupeng Mei
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • maize
  • breeding
  • genetics
  • yield
  • improvement
  • novel breeding techniques
  • genome editing

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 5807 KiB  
Article
Maize Class C Heat Shock Factor ZmHSF21 Improves the High Temperature Tolerance of Transgenic Arabidopsis
by Yurong Xie and Yuhan Ye
Agriculture 2024, 14(9), 1524; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14091524 - 4 Sep 2024
Viewed by 324
Abstract
High temperatures seriously threaten the global yield of maize. The objectives of the present study were to explore the key candidate gene involved in heat shock responses in maize and its potential biological function to heat stress. Here, we identified a Class C [...] Read more.
High temperatures seriously threaten the global yield of maize. The objectives of the present study were to explore the key candidate gene involved in heat shock responses in maize and its potential biological function to heat stress. Here, we identified a Class C heat shock factor, ZmHSF21, from maize leaves and used molecular biological and plant physiological assays to investigate its roles in transgenic Arabidopsis. ZmHSF21 encodes a putative protein of 388 amino acids. We showed that ZmHSF21 was expressed in most tissues of maize with relatively high expression in leaves and silks but rather low in roots and stalks, and its expression level in leaves was significantly up-regulated by heat treatment. We also showed that overexpression of ZmHSF21 in Arabidopsis significantly improved the seed germination frequency and plant survival rate when exposed to heat stress. We demonstrated that, compared with wild-type plants, the activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and catalase increased while the reactive oxygen species accumulation decreased in ZmHSF21 overexpressors under heat stress conditions. We further demonstrated that ZmHSF21 promoted the transcriptional level of AtAPX2, AtGolS1, and several AtHSPs. Collectively, the first-class C HSF in maize (ZmHSF21) is cloned in this study, and the combined results suggest that ZmHSF21 is a positive regulator of heat shock response and can be applied to develop maize high-temperature-tolerant varieties for more yield. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding and Genetics of Maize)
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