Maize Transformation: From Plant Material to the Release of Genetically Modified and Edited Varieties.

Over the past decades, advances in plant biotechnology have allowed the development of genetically modified maize varieties that have significantly impacted agricultural management and improved the grain yield worldwide. To date, genetically modified varieties represent 30% of the world's maize cultivated area and incorporate traits such as herbicide, insect and disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, high yield, and improved nutritional quality. Maize transformation, which is a prerequisite for genetically modified maize development, is no longer a major bottleneck. Protocols using morphogenic regulators have evolved significantly towards increasing transformation frequency and genotype independence. Emerging technologies using either stable or transient expression and tissue culture-independent methods, such as direct genome editing using RNA-guided endonuclease system as an in vivo desired-target mutator, simultaneous double haploid production and editing/haploid-inducer-mediated genome editing, and pollen transformation, are expected to lead significant progress in maize biotechnology. This review summarises the significant advances in maize transformation protocols, technologies, and applications and discusses the current status, including a pipeline for trait development and regulatory issues related to current and future genetically modified and genetically edited maize varieties.

Nutritionally driven differential gene expression leads to heterochronic brain development in honeybee castes.

The differential feeding regimes experienced by the queen and worker larvae of the honeybee Apis mellifera shape a complex endocrine response cascade that ultimately gives rise to differences in brain morphologies. Brain development analyzed at the morphological level from the third (L3) through fifth (L5) larval instars revealed an asynchrony between queens and workers. In the feeding phase of the last larval instar (L5F), two well-formed structures, pedunculi and calyces, are identifiable in the mushroom bodies of queens, both of which are not present in workers until a later phase (spinning phase, L5S). Genome-wide expression analyses and normalized transcript expression experiments monitoring specific genes revealed that this differential brain development starts earlier, during L3. Analyzing brains from L3 through L5S1 larvae, we identified 21 genes with caste-specific transcription patterns (e.g., APC-4, GlcAT-P, fax, kr-h1 and shot), which encode proteins that are potentially involved in the development of brain tissues through controlling the cell proliferation rate (APC4, kr-h1) and fasciculation (GlcAT-P, fax, and shot). Shot, whose expression is known to be required for axon extension and cell proliferation, was found to be transcribed at significantly higher levels in L4 queens compared with worker larvae. Moreover, the protein encoded by this gene was immunolocalized to the cytoplasm of cells near the antennal lobe neuropiles and proximal to the Kenyon cells in the brains of L4 queens. In conclusion, during the larval period, the brains of queens are larger and develop more rapidly than workers' brains, which represents a developmental heterochrony reflecting the effect of the differential feeding regime of the two castes on nervous system development. Furthermore, this differential development is characterized by caste-specific transcriptional profiles of a set of genes, thus pointing to a link between differential nutrition and differential neurogenesis via genes that control cell proliferation and fasciculation.