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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 19, 2026

Experimental Design for Laser Microdissection RNA-Seq: Lessons from an Analysis of Maize Leaf Development

Experimental Design for Laser Microdissection RNA-Seq: Lessons from an Analysis of Maize Leaf Development

Published on: March 5, 2017

Transcriptomic analyses indicate that maize ligule development recapitulates gene expression patterns that occur

Robyn Johnston¹, Minghui Wang², Qi Sun²

¹Section of Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853.

|December 18, 2014

Summary

Researchers studied maize leaf development to find genes controlling ligule and auricle formation. They discovered that genes involved in leaf initiation and branching are reused for ligule outgrowth.

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Lignin Down-regulation of Zea mays via dsRNAi and Klason Lignin Analysis

Lignin Down-regulation of Zea mays via dsRNAi and Klason Lignin Analysis

Published on: July 23, 2014

Area of Science:

Plant biology
Developmental genetics
Maize (Zea mays) research

Background:

Multicellular development relies on interpreting positional information to define distinct developmental fields.
The maize leaf, with its proximal sheath and distal blade, exemplifies plant morphogenesis, featuring specialized ligule and auricle structures at the boundary.
The liguleless1 mutant in maize lacks these structures, resulting in upright leaves, indicating their importance in normal leaf development.

Purpose of the Study:

To identify genes differentially expressed during ligule and auricle formation in maize leaf primordia.
To compare gene expression patterns between wild-type and liguleless1 mutant leaf primordia.
To understand the genetic basis of boundary formation and specialized structure development in plants.

Main Methods:

Laser microdissection and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) were employed to analyze gene expression.
Transcript accumulation was compared between specific cell/tissue domains along the proximal-distal axis of wild-type and mutant leaf primordia.
Differential gene expression analysis focused on genes involved in ligule initiation.

Main Results:

Several transcripts were identified as specifically upregulated at the blade-sheath boundary during ligule initiation.
A significant number of these "ligule genes" were found to be involved in earlier processes like leaf initiation and lateral branching.
These identified genes also intersect with multiple plant hormone signaling pathways.

Conclusions:

Genetic modules used for leaf and/or branch initiation appear to be redeployed for regulating ligule outgrowth from maize leaf primordia.
This suggests a conserved genetic toolkit for plant organ development and patterning.
The findings provide insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying boundary formation and specialized structure development in plants.