Comparative proteomics combined with morphophysiological analysis revealed low temperature response mechanism in two contrasting maize genotypes

Environmental conditions affect the growth and development of maize, and low temperature has been widely concerned as one of the most important factors. In the temperate zone, maize is found to be under chilling stress in its growth and development, especially at the seedling stage. Correspondingly, maize generates various measures to alleviate such stress, and its regulation of protein expression is one of the most effective. However, further research on the regulation mold has not yet been carried out. To gain a better understanding of the regulation mold, we used two inbred lines with different resistance, which are chilling tolerant KR701 and chilling sensitive hei8834, to undergo quantitative proteomics analysis under chilling stress at the one- and three-leaf stages, respectively. The results revealed diversified cold-resistant pathways of maize with different resistance at different stages of seedling, and the reasons behind. Meanwhile, we found that ABA in hormone response pathway plays an important role in improving the cold resistance of maize at one-leaf stage, which lays a solid foundation for further explorations of the cold-resistant mechanism in maize at the seedling stage, and enlightens strategic improvements of the cold resistance in world crops.