Transcriptome study of ethephon on maize internode elongation.

Plant growth regulator, ethephon significantly repressed maize internode elongation resulting in a wilde use in maize production for decreasing lodging risk. It is wildly accepted that ethephon regulate biological process by releasing ethylene which has been wildly studied in Arabidopsis and rice, however there are much difference between maize and rice or arabidopsis after ethylene treatment. Thus the knowledge of regulation mechanism of ethephon(or ethylene) on maize especially internode growth process is still insufficient. RNA-seq experiments were conducted for identifying different expression genes after ethephon treatment. the results indicated that ethephon regulate internode cell wall biosynthesis and modification via decreasing auxin and GA content and regulating signal transduction pathway, and cell elongation were inhibited.