Wu Yongrui's research group analyzes the molecular mechanism of cell expansion during corn endosperm filling stage

On November 27, 2021, Molecular Plant published online a research paper entitled "The O2-ZmGRAS11 transcriptional regulatory network orchestrates the coordination of cell expansion and grain filling in maize endosperm" from the Wu Yongrui research group of the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Endosperm filling is a process of biosynthetic storage

The study found two different endosperm cell expansion modes through the dynamic analysis of the cell expansion during corn endosperm development: one is 0-10 days after pollination, when the endosperm is in the early stage, the active GA content is higher, accompanied by Rapid cell mitosis, the thickness of the endosperm gradually increases; the other is that 10 days after pollination, the endosperm cell development is in the filling stage, and the cell mitosis is concentrated in the aleurone layer and subaleurone layer.

In this study, a co-expression network analysis was used to screen a member of the GRAS transcription factor family ZmGRAS11 that is specifically expressed in endosperm , which may be involved in the regulation of endosperm cell expansion during the filling stage

This study proved that the expansion of endosperm cells during the filling stage is coupled with the endosperm filling process through the O2-ZmGRAS11-centered transcription network, in which the key transcription factor O2 directly recognizes and activates the expression of ZmGRAS11

Ji Chen, a doctoral student from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is the first author of the paper, and researcher Wu Yongrui and associate researcher Wang Jiechen are the co-corresponding authors

Link to the paper: https://doi.

Maize endosperm enlargement process

O2-ZmGRAS11 coupled endosperm filling and cell expansion regulation model