Transcriptome analysis reveals critical genes and key pathways involved in early phyllotaxy development in maize

Integrated networks of gene expression, hormonal signaling and metabolite sensing regulate phyllotaxy pattern development. In this study, we characterized differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between maize plants with alternate and opposite phyllotaxies. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses showed that 2432 DEGs were involved in biological processes, molecular functions, cellular components and many pathways. Importantly, we identified 19 DEGs related to plant hormone signal transduction. Additionally, we identified four main alternative splicing types: skipped exons, retained introns, alternative 5'-splice sites, and alternative 3'-splice sites, which exhibited different characteristics in the alternate and opposite phyllotaxy libraries. The reliability of the sequencing data was verified through using quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR analysis of the 19 genes: 15 were validated to play a role in phytohormone signal transduction pathways. Taken together, our data provide new insight into the mechanisms of phyllotaxy pattern development, and will increase our understanding of how relative changes in gene expression determine alternate/opposite phyllotaxy in maize.