Abstract: Endophytic bacteria DZSY21 can stably colonize in maize and enhance the maize resistance to disease. Therefore, this study predicted the molecular mechanism of maize disease resistance induced by endophytic bacteria DZSY21 at the genetic level. The transcriptome sequencing technology was used to analyze the differential expression pattern of total genes in different periods of maize leaves inoculated with DZSY21. Cufflinks software was used to process the data, and the fold change≥2 and FDR<0.01 were set as standards to select DEGs. The results showed that there were 2 413 DEGs after inoculated with DZSY21 at 12 h compared with the control group inoculated with DZSY21 at 0 h, including 1 278 up-regulated DEGs and 1 135 down-regulated DEGs. There were 737 DEGs after inoculation at 24 h, including 538 up-regulated DEGs and 199 down-regulated DEGs. According to the results of functional annotation, 218 DEGs were obtained involved in 26 resistance pathways after inoculation at 12 h, including bifunctional inhibitor/lipid-transfer protein, MATE efflux family protein and LysM domain receptor-like kinase. There were 71 DEGs involved in 30 resistance pathways after inoculation at 24 h, including isoflavone reductase, probable cellulose synthase, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, L-ascorbate peroxidase, probable transcription factor GLK and ACC oxidase. There were 23 DEGs duplicated in different treatment periods. The above results showed that the introduction of endophytic bacteria DZSY21 into maize could regulate the expression of resistance-related genes in maize leaves. This work provided a theoretical basis for further searching for resistance genes and their function identification.

Key words: DZSY21, maize, resistance gene, transcriptome