[Mechanism on differential gene expression and heterosis formation]

Despite the rediscovery of heterosis about a century ago and the suggestion of various genetic models to explain this phenomenon, little consensus has yet been reached about the genetic basis of heterosis. Following the genome organization variation and gene effects, an understanding of gene differential expression in hybrids and its parents provides a new opportunity to speculate on mechanisms that might lead to heterosis. Investigation on allele-specific gene expression in hybrid and gene differential expression between hybrids and its parents might contribute to improve our understanding of the molecular basis of heterosis and eventually guide breeding practices. In this review, we discussed the recent researches on allelic-specific expression in hybrid which was frequently observed in recent studies and analyzed its regulatory mechanism. All possible modes of gene action, including additivity, high- and low-parent dominance, underdominance, and over-dominance, were observed when investigating gene differential expression between hybrids and its parents. Data from transcriptomic studies screened several heterosis-associated genes and highlighted the importance of certain key biochemical pathways that may prove to be quintessential for the manifestation of heterosis. So far, no uniform global expression pat-terns were observed in these gene expression studies. Most heterosis-associated gene expression analyses have not revealed a predominant functional category to which differentially expressed genes belong. However, these gene expression profiling studies represent a first step towards the definition of the complex gene expression networks that might be relevant in the context of heterosis. New technique on gene expression profile and advancements in bioinformatics will facilitate our understanding of the genetic basis of heterosis at the gene-expression level.