The ZmNF-YC1-ZmAPRG pathway modulates low phosphorus tolerance in maize.

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient for plant growth and yield. Low phosphate use efficiency makes it important to clarify the molecular mechanism of low P stress. In our previous studies, a P efficiency gene ZmAPRG was identified. Here, we further screened the upstream regulator ZmNF-YC1 of ZmAPRG by yeast one hybrid (Y1H) assay, and found it was a low inorganic phosphorus (Pi)-inducible gene. The results of dual luciferase assays, expression analysis, and ChIP-qPCR assays showed that ZmNF-YC1 is a positive regulator of ZmAPRG. Overexpression of ZmNF-YC1 improved low P tolerance, whereas knockout of ZmNF-YC1 decreased low P tolerance in maize. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC), yeast two hybrid (Y2H) assay, and yeast three hybrid (Y3H) assay further showed that ZmNF-YC1 can interact with ZmNF-YB14, and recruit ZmNF-YA4/10 to form NF-Y complexes. Transcriptional activation assay confirmed that the NF-Y complexes can activate the promoters of ZmAPRG. Meanwhile, transcriptome and metabolome analyses indicated that overexpression of ZmAPRG improves low P tolerance by regulating lipid composition and photosynthetic capacity, and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters provided evidence in support of this hypothesis. Furthermore, overexpression of ZmAPRG increased grain yield in inbred and hybrid maize under low P conditions. Taken together, our research revealed a low P tolerance mechanism of the ZmNF-YC1-ZmAPRG pathway.

Salt Tolerant Gene 1 contributes to salt tolerance by maintaining photosystem II activity in maize.

Salt stress is a major environmental factor limiting crop growth and productivity. Here, we show that Salt-Tolerant Gene 1 (ZmSTG1) contributes to salt tolerance by maintaining photosystem activity in maize. ZmSTG1 encodes an endoplasmic reticulum localized protein and retrotransposon insertion in the promoter region causes differential expression levels in maize inbred lines. Overexpression of ZmSTG1 improved plant growth vigor, and knockout of ZmSTG1 weakened plant growth under normal and salt stress conditions. Transcriptome and metabolome analyses indicated that ZmSTG1 might regulate the expression of lipid trafficking-related genes dependent on the abscisic acid (ABA) signaling pathway, thereby increasing the galactolipids and phospholipid concentrations in the photosynthetic membrane under salt stress. Chlorophyll fluorescence parameters showed that the knockout of ZmSTG1 led to significant impairment of plant photosystem II (PSII) activity under normal and salt stress conditions, whereas overexpression of ZmSTG1 dramatically improved plant PSII activity under salt stress conditions. We also demonstrated that the application of the salt-tolerant locus could enhance salt tolerance in hybrid maize plants. Taken together, we propose that ZmSTG1 may modulate the lipid composition in the photosynthetic membrane by affecting the expression of lipid trafficking-related genes to maintain the photosynthetic activity of plants under salt stress.

CORDIC-Based General Multiple Fading Generator for Wireless Channel Digital Twin.

A wireless channel digital twin is a useful tool to evaluate the performance of a communication system at the physical or link level by generating the physical channel controllably. In this paper, a stochastic general fading channel model is proposed, which considered most of the channel fading types for various communication scenarios. By using the sum-of-frequency-modulation (SoFM) method, the phase discontinuity of the generated channel fading was well addressed. On this basis, a general and flexible generation architecture for channel fading was developed on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) platform. In this architecture, improved CORDIC-based hardware circuits for the trigonometric function, exponential function, and natural logarithm were designed and implemented, which improved the real-time performance of the system and the utilization rate of the hardware resources compared with the traditional LUT and CORDIC method. For a 16-bit fixed-point data bit width single-channel emulation, the hardware resource consumption was significantly reduced from 36.56% to 15.62% for the overall system by utilizing the compact time-division (TD) structure. Moreover, the classical CORDIC method brought an extra latency of 16 system clock cycles, while the latency caused by the improved CORDIC method was decreased by 62.5%. Finally, a generation scheme of a correlated Gaussian sequence was developed to introduce a controllable arbitrary space-time correlation for the channel generator with multiple channels. The output results of the developed generator were consistent with the theoretical results, which verified the correctness of both the generation method and hardware implementation. The proposed channel fading generator can be applied for the emulation of large-scale multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) channels under various dynamic communication scenarios.

A new network containing MYB109-ZmCesA5 is involved in kernel development.

MYB genes regulate several different aspects of metabolism and development. However, few studies have reported the involvement of MYBs-CesAs network in the regulation of maize kernel development. In this study, yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) assays and dual-luciferase reporter assays showed that ZmMYB109 activated the expression of ZmCesA5 by directly binding to its promoter. Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and transcriptome analyses showed that ZmMYB109 expression increased in ZmCesA5-OE kernels and decreased in ZmCesA5-KO kernels. Overexpression of ZmCesA5 produced heavier kernels, whereas loss of function of ZmCesA5 affected starch and sucrose metabolism, resulting in weight reduction of the maize kernels. Collectively, these findings suggest that a new network containing MYB109-ZmCesA5 is involved in kernel development.

Maize transcription factor ZmNF-YC13 regulates plant architecture.

Leaf angle and leaf orientation value (LOV) are critical agronomic traits for maize plant architecture. The functions of NUCLEAR FACTOR Y (NF-Y) members in regulating plant architecture have not been reported yet. Here, we identified a regulator of maize plant architecture, NF-Y subunit C13 (ZmNF-YC13). ZmNF-YC13 was highly expressed in the leaf base zone of maize plants. ZmNF-YC13 overexpressing plants showed upright leaves with narrow leaf angle and larger LOV, while ZmNF-YC13 knockout plants had larger leaf angle and smaller LOV compared with wild-type plants. The changes in plant architecture were due to the changes in the expression of cytochrome P450 family members. ZmNF-YC13 interacts with two NF-Y subunit B members (ZmNF-YB9 and ZmNF-YB10) of the LEAFY COTYLEDON1 sub-family, and further recruits NF-Y subunit A (ZmNF-YA3) to form two NF-Y complexes. The two complexes can both activate the promoters of transcriptional repressors (ZmWRKY76 and ZmBT2), and the promoters of PLASTOCHRON group genes can be repressed by ZmWRKY76 and ZmBT2 in maize protoplasts. We propose that ZmNF-YC13 functions as a transcriptional regulator and, together with ZmNF-YBs and ZmNF-YA3, affects plant architecture by regulating the expression of ZmWRKY76 and ZmBT2, which repress the expression of cytochrome P450 family members in PLASTOCHRON branch.

Temporal and spatial variation characteristics of surface water area in the Yellow River Basin from 1986 to 2021.

The Yellow River Basin is short of water resources. The dynamic monitoring of surface water area is helpful to clarify the distribution and change trend of water resources in this area. It is of great scientific significance to deeply understand the impacts of climate change and human activities on water resources and ensure the ecological security of the basin. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform, we analyzed the spatial variations of surface water area in the Yellow River Basin from 1986 to 2021 by using the mixed index algorithm, and revealed the driving factors of surface water area change in the Yellow River Basin. The results showed that the overall recognition accuracy of the water extraction algorithm based on mixing index was 97.5%. Compared with available water data products, the proposed algorithm can guarantee the integrity of the whole water area to a certain extent. The surface water area in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin was 71.7%, 18.4%, and 9.9% of the total surface water area, respectively. From 1986 to 2021, the surface water area of the basin showed an overall upward trend, with a total increase of 3163.6 km2. The surface water area of the upper, middle, and downstream regions increased by 72.0%, 22.4%, and 5.6%, respectively. The increase of precipitation was the main reason for the increase of water area, with a contribution of 55%. Vegetation restoration and construction of water conservancy projects had increased the water area of the basin. The intensification of human water extraction activity reduced the water area of the basin.