TY - JA AU - Grimanelli,D. AU - Perotti,E. AU - Ramirez,J. AU - Leblanc,O. TI - Timing of the maternal-to-zygotic transition during early seed development in maize SN - 1040-4651 PY - 2005/// CY - USA PB - American Society of Plant Biologists KW - Maize KW - AGROVOC KW - Seeds KW - Zygote stage KW - Embryonic development KW - Genetic inheritance KW - Gene expression regulation N1 - Peer review; Peer-review: Yes - Open Access: Yes|http://science.thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=MASTER&ISSN=1040-4651 N2 - In animals, early embryonic development is largely dependent on maternal transcripts synthesized during gametogenesis. Recent data in plants also suggest maternal control over early seed development, but the actual timing of zygotic genome activation is unclear. Here, we analyzed the timing of the maternal-to-zygotic transition during early Zea mays seed development. We show that for 16 genes expressed during early seed development, only maternally inherited alleles are detected during 3 d after fertilization in both the embryo and the endosperm. Microarray analyses of precocious embryonic development in apomictic hybrids between maize and its wild relative, Tripsacum, demonstrate that early embryo development occurs without significant quantitative changes to the transcript population in the ovule before fertilization. Precocious embryo development is also correlated with a higher proportion of polyadenylated mRNA in the ovules. Our data suggest that the maternal-to-zygotic transition occurs several days after fertilization. By contrast, novel transcription accompanies early endosperm development, indicating that different mechanisms are involved in the initiation of endosperm and embryo development UR - https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12665/1009 DO - https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.104.029819 T2 - Plant Cell ER -