MicroRNA transcriptomic analysis of heterosis during maize seed germination

Heterosis has been utilized widely in the breeding of maize and other crops, and plays an important role in increasing yield, improving quality and enhancing stresses resistance, but the molecular mechanism responsible for heterosis is far from clear. To illustrate whether miRNA-dependent gene regulation is responsible for heterosis during maize germination, a deep-sequencing technique was applied to germinating embryos of a maize hybrid, Yuyu22, which is cultivated widely in China and its parental inbred lines, Yu87-1 and Zong3. The target genes of several miRNAs showing significant expression in the hybrid and parental lines were predicted and tested using real-time PCR. A total of 107 conserved maize miRNAs were co-detected in the hybrid and parental lines. Most of these miRNAs were expressed non-additively in the hybrid compared to its parental lines. These results indicated that miRNAs might participate in heterosis during maize germination and exert an influence via the decay of their target genes. Novel miRNAs were predicted follow a rigorous criterion and only the miRNAs detected in all three samples were treated as a novel maize miRNA. In total, 34 miRNAs belonged to 20 miRNA families were predicted in germinating maize seeds. Global repression of miRNAs in the hybrid, which might result in enhanced gene expression, might be one reason why the hybrid showed higher embryo germination vigor compared to its parental lines.