Molecular signatures of temperature-dependent root meristem growth in young maize seedlings

Prolonged cold stress has a strong effect on plant growth and development, especially in subtropical crops such as maize. Soil temperature limits primary root elongation, mainly during early seedling establishment. We have studied root tips of young maize seedlings grown hydroponically at 30 degrees and after a short period (up to 24 h) of moderate cooling (20 degrees). Total RNA from 100 mg of powdered tissue was extracted using TRI Reagent (Sigma-Aldrich, San Luis, MI, USA) following the manufacturer's instructions. The RNA integrity was measured using a 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). Sequencing libraries from each sample were constructed with the directional DNBSEQ protocol (BGI-Tech, Shenzhen, China), in pair-end mode with 100 sequencing cycles. NGS sequencing was carried on BGISEQ-500. The raw reads were preprocessed using BGI-Tech bioinformatics workflow.