Zea mays Transcriptome or Gene expression. Zea mays

Ustilago maydis is a basidiomycete fungus that causes smut disease in maize. Most prominent symptoms of the disease are plant tumors, which can be induced by U. maydis on all aerial parts of the plant. We identified two linked genes, pit1 and pit2, which are specifically expressed during plant colonization. Deletion mutants for either pit1 or pit2 are unable to induce tumor development and elicit plant defense responses. We used the Affymetrix maize genome array to analyze the transcriptional responses of maize to deletion pit1 and pit2 mutants and found plant responses to both mutants being not significantly distinguishable. Overall design: U. maydis infected parts of maize seedling leaves were dissected 4 days after inoculation with strain SG200Dpit1 and SG200Dpit2, respectively. We previously submitted data of maize leaves that were treated with the progenitor wild type strain SG200 as well as mock-infections under identical experimetal conditions (GEO: GSE10023, 4d mock and 4d SG200 Samples). These data served as controls for this experiment.