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Heterosis, known as one of the most successful strategies for increasing grain yield and abiotic/biotic stress tolerance, has been widely exploited in maize breeding. However, the underlying molecular processes are still to be elucidated. The maize hybrid "Zhengdan538" shows high tolerance to drought stress. The transcriptomes of the seedling leaves of its parents, "ZhengA88" and "ZhengT22" and their reciprocal F1 hybrid under well‐watered and water deficit conditions, were analyzed by RNA sequencing (RNA‐Seq). Transcriptome profiling of the reciprocal hybrid revealed 2994–4692 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) under well‐watered and water‐deficit conditions, which were identified by comparing with their parents. The reciprocal hybrid was more closely related to the parental line "ZhengT22" than to the parental line "ZhengA88" in terms of gene expression patterns under water‐deficit condition. Furthermore, genes showed expression level dominance (ELD), especially the high‐parental ELD (Class 3 and 5), accounted for the largest proportion of DEGs between the reciprocal F1 hybrid and their parental lines under water deficit. These ELD genes mainly participated in photosynthesis, energy biosynthesis, and metabolism processes. The results indicated that ELD genes played important roles in hybrid tolerance to water deficit. Moreover, a set of important drought‐responsive transcription factors were found to be encoded by the identified ELD genes and are thought to function in improving drought tolerance in maize hybrid plants. Our results provide a better understanding of the molecular mechanism of drought tolerance in hybrid maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is one of the main abiotic stresses adversely affecting maize growth and grain yield. Identifying drought tolerance‐related genes and breeding varieties with enhanced tolerance are effective strategies for minimizing the effects of drought stress. In this study, the leaf relative water content (LRWC) was used for evaluating drought tolerance. QTL‐seq analysis of 419 F2 individuals from a cross between ZhengT22 (the drought‐tolerant line with high LRWC) and ZhengA88 (the drought‐sensitive line with low LRWC) revealed four LRWC‐related QTLs (qLRWC2, qLRWC10a, qLRWC10b, and qLRWC10c) in maize seedlings under water deficit. Of these QTLs, qLRWC2 was located in a 2.03‐Mb interval on chromosome 2, whereas qLRWC10a, qLRWC10b, and qLRWC10c were located in 2.85‐, 3.99‐, and 2.05‐Mb intervals, respectively, on chromosome 10, and the 93 genes contained the variation loci locating in the four QTLs regions. To identify the candidate genes within the QTLs, an RNA‐seq analysis was performed for the parents exposed to water deficit. Seven genes with effective variation loci showed significant difference in expression either in ZhengA88 or ZhengT22 in response to water deficit. Moreover, among the genes, ZmPrx64, ZmCIPK, HSP90, and ABCG34 have all been shown to be related to water stress in the previous studies. Thus, they are primary considered as the potential candidate genes controlling LRWC under water deficit at the seeding stage of maize in this study. These findings will help clarify the molecular basis of drought tolerance in maize seedlings and may be relevant for future functional analysis and for breeding drought‐tolerant maize varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]