Aspergillus flavus infection induces transcriptional and physical changes in developing maize kernels.

Maize kernels are susceptible to infection by the opportunistic pathogen Aspergillus flavus. Infection results in reduction of grain quality and contamination of kernels with the highly carcinogenic mycotoxin, aflatoxin. To understanding host response to infection by the fungus, transcription of approximately 9000 maize genes were monitored during the host-pathogen interaction with a custom designed Affymetrix GeneChip® DNA array. More than 4000 maize genes were found differentially expressed at a FDR of 0.05. This included the up regulation of defense related genes and signaling pathways. Transcriptional changes also were observed in primary metabolism genes. Starch biosynthetic genes were down regulated during infection, while genes encoding maize hydrolytic enzymes, presumably involved in the degradation of host reserves, were up regulated. These data indicate that infection of the maize kernel by A. flavus induced metabolic changes in the kernel, including the production of a defense response, as well as a disruption in kernel development.

Maize ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs) with distinct expression patterns have similar requirements for proenzyme activation.

Ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs, EC 3.2.2.22) are potent naturally occurring toxins found in numerous and diverse plant species. The maize RIP is unusual among the plant RIPs because it is synthesized as an inactive precursor (also known as maize proRIP1 or b-32). The proenzyme undergoes proteolytic activation that results in the removal of the NH(2)-terminal, the COOH-terminal, and internal sequences to form a two-chain holoenzyme capable of irreversibly modifying the large rRNA. The characterization of a second maize RIP (RIP2), encoded by the gene designated Rip3:2 is described here. Low levels of Rip3:2 RNA were detected in roots, shoots, tassels, silks, and leaves, but the Rip3:2 gene, unlike the Rip3:1 gene, is not under the control of the transcriptional activator Opaque-2. Instead, its expression was up-regulated by drought. Rip3:2 encodes a 31.1 kDa polypeptide that is very similar to proRIP1 in regions corresponding to those found in the active protein and the NH(2)-terminal extension. A 19-amino-acid internal portion of proRIP2 has little similarity to the proRIP1 sequence except that both are very rich in acidic residues. RIP activity assays revealed that Rip3:2 encodes a polypeptide that acquires RNA-specific N-glycosidase activity after proteolytic cleavage. Accumulation as inactive proenzymes may therefore be a general feature of maize RIPs. Differential regulation of the two RIP genes suggests that the corresponding proteins may be involved in defence-related functions with one being regulated developmentally and the other being responsive to an environmental stimulus.