Zea mays Transcriptome or Gene expression. Zea mays

ECB larvae remain damaging pests of conventiational maize production. To better understand the physiological and molecular changes occuring in stem tissue during insect attack we explored the biochemical and transcriptional profiles in these tissues. We used microarrays to detail the transcriptional changes associated with ECB attack and considered these in the context of biochemical markers of plant defense and total protein levels. Overall design: Maize internode tissue was selected from untreated control plants and those which 5th instar ECB larvae had bored into for 48 h for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.