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Domesticates are an excellent model for understanding biological consequences of rapid climate change. Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) was domesticated from a tropical grass yet is widespread across temperate regions today. We investigate the biological basis of temperate adaptation in diverse structured nested association mapping (NAM) populations from China, Europe (Dent and Flint) and the United States as well as in the Ames inbred diversity panel, using days to flowering as a proxy. Using cross-population prediction, where high prediction accuracy derives from overall genomic relatedness, shared genetic architecture, and sufficient diversity in the training population, we identify patterns in predictive ability across the five populations. To identify the source of temperate adapted alleles in these populations, we predict top associated genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified loci in a Random Forest Classifier using independent temperate–tropical North American populations based on lines selected from Hapmap3 as predictors. We find that North American populations are well predicted (AUC equals 0.89 and 0.85 for Ames and USNAM, respectively), European populations somewhat well predicted (AUC equals 0.59 and 0.67 for the Dent and Flint panels, respectively) and that the Chinese population is not predicted well at all (AUC is 0.47), suggesting an independent adaptation process for early flowering in China. Multiple adaptations for the complex trait days to flowering in maize provide hope for similar natural systems under climate change.

The diversity of maize (Zea mays) is the backbone of modern heterotic patterns and hybrid breeding. Historically, US farmers exploited this variability to establish today’s highly productive Corn Belt inbred lines from blends of dent and flint germplasm pools. Here, we report de novo genome sequences of four European flint lines assembled to pseudomolecules with scaffold N50 ranging from 6.1 to 10.4 Mb. Comparative analyses with two US Corn Belt lines explains the pronounced differences between both germplasms. While overall syntenic order and consolidated gene annotations reveal only moderate pangenomic differences, whole-genome alignments delineating the core and dispensable genome, and the analysis of heterochromatic knobs and orthologous long terminal repeat retrotransposons unveil the dynamics of the maize genome. The high-quality genome sequences of the flint pool complement the maize pangenome and provide an important tool to study maize improvement at a genome scale and to enhance modern hybrid breeding., De novo genome assemblies of four European flint maize lines and comparison with two US Corn Belt genomes provide insights into the dynamics of intraspecies variation in repeat and gene content in maize genomes.

Discovery and enrichment of favorable alleles in landraces are key to making them accessible for crop improvement. Here, we present two fundamentally different concepts for genome-based selection in landrace-derived maize populations, one based on doubled-haploid (DH) lines derived directly from individual landrace plants and the other based on crossing landrace plants to a capture line. For both types of populations, we show theoretically how allele frequencies of the ancestral landrace and the capture line translate into expectations for molecular and genetic variances. We show that the DH approach has clear advantages over gamete capture with generally higher prediction accuracies and no risk of masking valuable variation of the landrace. Prediction accuracies as high as 0.58 for dry matter yield in the DH population indicate high potential of genome-based selection. Based on a comparison among traits, we show that the genetic makeup of the capture line has great influence on the success of genome-based selection and that confounding effects between the alleles of the landrace and the capture line are best controlled for traits for which the capture line does not outperform the ancestral population per se or in testcrosses. Our results will guide the optimization of genome-enabled prebreeding schemes.

Altering plant water use efficiency (WUE) is a promising approach for achieving sustainable crop production in changing climate scenarios. Here, we show that WUE can be tuned by alleles of a single gene discovered in elite maize (Zea mays) breeding material. Genetic dissection of a genomic region affecting WUE led to the identification of the gene ZmAbh4 as causative for the effect. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated ZmAbh4 inactivation increased WUE without growth reductions in well-watered conditions. ZmAbh4 encodes an enzyme that hydroxylates the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) and initiates its catabolism. Stomatal conductance is regulated by ABA and emerged as a major link between variation in WUE and discrimination against the heavy carbon isotope (Δ13C) during photosynthesis in the C4 crop maize. Changes in Δ13C persisted in kernel material, which offers an easy-to-screen proxy for WUE. Our results establish a direct physiological and genetic link between WUE and Δ13C through a single gene with potential applications in maize breeding.

Key message Doubled-haploid libraries from landraces capture native genetic diversity for a multitude of quantitative traits and make it accessible for breeding and genome-based studies. Abstract Maize landraces comprise large allelic diversity. We created doubled-haploid (DH) libraries from three European flint maize landraces and characterized them with respect to their molecular diversity, population structure, trait means, variances, and trait correlations. In total, 899 DH lines were evaluated using high-quality genotypic and multi-environment phenotypic data from up to 11 environments. The DH lines covered 95% of the molecular variation present in 35 landraces of an earlier study and represent the original three landrace populations in an unbiased manner. A comprehensive analysis of the target trait plant development at early growth stages as well as other important agronomic traits revealed large genetic variation for line per se and testcross performance. The majority of the 378 DH lines evaluated as testcrosses outperformed the commercial hybrids for early development. For total biomass yield, we observed a yield gap of 15% between mean testcross yield of the commercial hybrids and mean testcross yield of the DH lines. The DH lines also exhibited genetic variation for undesirable traits like root lodging and tillering, but correlations with target traits early development and yield were low or nonsignificant. The presented diversity atlas is a valuable, publicly available resource for genome-based studies to identify novel trait variation and evaluate the prospects of genomic prediction in landrace-derived material. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00122-019-03428-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Emotion dysfunction is a key symptom in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and is considered a consequence of dysfunctional emotion regulation (e.g., reduced emotion acceptance). In the present functional MRI (fMRI) study, we investigated the neural correlates of habitual emotion acceptance in individuals with BPD.; Methods: Female patients with BPD and female healthy controls passively viewed negative and neutral movie clips of faces during fMRI. We assessed emotion acceptance using the Emotion Acceptance Questionnaire (EAQ). To examine brain activation associated with habitual emotional acceptance of negative stimuli, the EAQ score was included as a regressor of interest in brain data analyses of activation intensity during negative compared with neutral movies.; Results: We included 20 women with BPD and 20 heatlhy controls in our analysis. Compared with healthy controls, patients with BPD showed significantly more activation in frontostriatal brain regions (i.e., left superior frontal gyrus, right caudate) as well as in the left precuneus, left precentral gyrus, left posterior cingulate cortex and left hippocampus when confronted with negative (v. neutral) stimuli. Patients with BPD reported decreased emotion acceptance compared with healthy controls, and habitual emotion acceptance was inversely associated with activation of striatal areas (i.e., left putamen, left caudate) in patients with BPD.; Limitations: Causal conclusions are not possible. Comorbid diagnoses were not excluded, and only female participants were investigated. Stimuli were not rated immediately and may not be generalizable to all negative emotions. We cannot make any statements about other emotion-regulation strategies that may have been applied here.; Conclusion: Data indicate that striatal hyperactivation during the processing of negative stimuli in women with BPD is related to their decreased disposition to accept unpleasant emotional states. Thus, individuals with BPD may benefit from therapy approaches that focus on emotion acceptance in order to normalize emotional reactions. © 2019 Joule Inc. or its licensors

Selected doubled haploid lines averaged similar testcross performance as their original landraces, and the best of them approached the yields of elite inbreds, demonstrating their potential to broaden the narrow genetic diversity of the flint germplasm pool. Maize landraces represent a rich source of genetic diversity that remains largely idle because the high genetic load and performance gap to elite germplasm hamper their use in modern breeding programs. Production of doubled haploid (DH) lines can mitigate problems associated with the use of landraces in pre-breeding. Our objective was to assess in comparison with modern materials the testcross performance (TP) of the best 89 out of 389 DH lines developed from six landraces and evaluated in previous studies for line per se performance (LP). TP with a dent tester was evaluated for the six original landraces, ~ 15 DH lines from each landrace selected for LP, and six elite flint inbreds together with nine commercial hybrids for grain and silage traits. Mean TP of the DH lines rarely differed significantly from TP of their corresponding landrace, which averaged in comparison with the mean TP of the elite flint inbreds ~ 20% lower grain yield and ~ 10% lower dry matter and methane yield. Trait correlations of DH lines closely agreed with the literature; correlation of TP with LP was zero for grain yield, underpinning the need to evaluate TP in addition to LP. For all traits, we observed substantial variation for TP among the DH lines and the best showed similar TP yields as the elite inbreds. Our results demonstrate the high potential of landraces for broadening the narrow genetic base of the flint heterotic pool and the usefulness of the DH technology for exploiting idle genetic resources from gene banks.

Up until now, the Early Middle High German text ›Anegenge‹ has been discredited in academic research for various different reasons, including claims that it is merely a bad didactic poem, whose sole purpose is to portray the complete history of salvation. This paper aims to illustrate that the main topic of the poem is not, as has been the common consensus thus far, the history of salvation, but, instead, the Holy Trinity. This allows for a reevaluation of the text.

Altern geht mit metabolischen, strukturellen und anatomischen Veranderungen auf Hirnebene einher. Sehr viele Hirnregionen sind in unterschiedlichem Ausmas davon betroffen, insbesondere prafrontale und medio-temporale Regionen. Es besteht kein sicherer Nachweis fur asymmetrische Neurodegeneration, aber fur asymmetrische Netzwerktopologien. Systematische Studien zu Veranderungen der Netzwerkprozesse im Alter stehen noch aus. Anderungen des Hirnmetabolismus spezifisch fur unterschiedliche Altersphasen sind evident. Der Bedeutung von Neuroinflammation bei Alteren wird ein groses Potenzial fur die Beschreibung alterskorrelierter Veranderungen zugeschrieben. Die Bedeutung von Sexualhormonen fur neuronale und kognitive Funktion im Alter ist fur den Menschen noch nicht ausreichend aufgeklart. Veranderungen von Neurotransmitterbalancen bei Alteren sind gezeigt worden. Es besteht konvergente Evidenz, dass die anatomischen und physiologischen Veranderungen im Alter mit Anderungen der kognitiven und emotionalen Verarbeitung einhergehen. Auf kognitiver Ebene ist eine deutliche Leistungsheterogenitat sichtbar. Relative Leistungsstabilitat ist insbesondere fur Wortschatz, semantische und implizite Gedachtnisleistungen zu erwarten, relativer Leistungsabfall fur episodische und Arbeitsgedachtnisleistung, selektive und geteilte Aufmerksamkeitsleistung sowie fur Exekutivfunktionen. Altere Personen haben ein erhohtes Risiko postoperativ ein Delir und/oder eine kognitive Beeintrachtigung zu erleiden, was neben der Leistungsheterogenitat bei der Organisation und Durchfuhrung von neuropsychologischer Diagnostik spezifisch zu berucksichtigen ist. Trotz vieler Einzelbefunde bleibt das Gesamtbild noch luckenhaft. Kausale Erklarungen sind schwierig, da Ursachen fur Veranderungen im Alter vielfaltig sind und mit vielen biologischen und psychologischen Faktoren interagieren.

In recent years we all had to realize that plastics has not only been accumulating in the oceans, but as microplastics also has entered surface waters, soils and partly organisms in large numbers. Thus, as with other pollutants in the environment in the past, we need detection and monitoring methods for quantifying their distribution, fate and pathways. By that we can better understand where they are emitted, where they are present and what are the key mechanisms they undergo. However, this means a new challenge and need for novel approaches because they are different to other pollutants. In one study we have monitored presence of microplastic particles and some of their properties in a surface water course and groundwater wells close the river banks, detecting them by a novel and fast imaging technique after processing of surface water samples. Furthermore, soil and sand samples from different places were separated by density and then manually analyzed, and the results indicated an extensive presence of microplastic particles. Finally, we have developed a tomography approach to detect microplastic particles also in undisturbed sandy soil or sediment samples. This has the advantage that cores can be taken and analyzed that show the real distribution of microplastic particles, and obtain also some information on their size and shape. Overall, this also can contribute to understand their deposition and displacement in the past. We will demonstrate how a combination of X-ray and neutron tomography could be used to identify microplastic particles non-invasively, for test samples as well as first environmental samples.

Thousands of maize landraces are stored in seed banks worldwide. Doubled-haploid libraries (DHL) produced from landraces harness their rich genetic diversity for future breeding. We investigated the prospects of genomic prediction (GP) for line per se performance in DHL from six European landraces and 53 elite flint (EF) lines by comparing four scenarios: GP within a single library (sL); GP between pairs of libraries (LwL); and GP among combined libraries, either including (cLi) or excluding (cLe) lines from the training set (TS) that belong to the same DHL as the prediction set. For scenario sL, with N = 50 lines in the TS, the prediction accuracy (ρ) among seven agronomic traits varied from −0.53 to 0.57 for the DHL and reached up to 0.74 for the EF lines. For LwL, ρ was close to zero for all DHL and traits. Whereas scenario cLi showed improved ρ values compared to sL, ρ for cLe remained at the low level observed for LwL. Forecasting ρ with deterministic equations yielded inflated values compared to empirical estimates of ρ for the DHL, but conserved the ranking. In conclusion, GP is promising within DHL, but large TS sizes (N > 100) are needed to achieve decent prediction accuracy because LD between QTL and markers is the primary source of information that can be exploited by GP. Since production of DHL from landraces is expensive, we recommend GP only for very large DHL produced from a few highly preselected landraces.

// Nataliya Rohr-Udilova 1 , Eva Bauer 2 , Gerald Timelthaler 3 , Robert Eferl 3 , Klaus Stolze 4, 5 , Matthias Pinter 1 , Martha Seif 1 , Hubert Hayden 1 , Thomas Reiberger 1 , Rolf Schulte-Hermann 3 , Markus Peck-Radosavljevic 1, 6 , Dagmar Stoiber 2, 7, * and Michael Trauner 1, * 1 Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Internal Medicine III, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 2 Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cancer Research, Vienna, Austria 3 Institute of Cancer Research, Internal Medicine I, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 4 Department of Life Sciences, Veterinary University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 5 Institute of Animal Nutrition and Functional Plan Compounds, Department of Farm Animals and Veterinary Public Health, Veterinary University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 6 Clinic Klagenfurth, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Klagenfurt am Woerthersee, Austria 7 Institute of Pharmacology, Center for Physiology and Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Nataliya Rohr-Udilova, email: nataliya.rohr-udilova@meduniwien.ac.at Keywords: phospholipid glutathione peroxidase; free radicals; cell proliferation; angiogenesis; hepatocellular carcinoma Received: August 12, 2017 Accepted: November 16, 2017 Published: January 22, 2018 ABSTRACT Insufficient supplementation with the micronutrient selenium and persistent hepatic inflammation predispose to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Inflammation-associated reactive oxygen species attack membrane lipids and form lipid hydroperoxides able to propagate oxidative hepatic damage. Selenium-containing enzyme glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPx4) antagonizes this damage by reducing lipid hydroperoxides to respective hydroxides. However, the role of GPx4 in HCC remains elusive. We generated two human HCC cell lines with stable overexpression of GPx4, performed xenotransplantation into NOD.Cg-Prkdc scid Il2rg tm1Wjl /SzJ (NSG) host mice and characterized the tumors formed. The experimental data were verified using gene expression data from two independent HCC patient cohorts. GPx4 overexpression protected from oxidative stress and reduced intracellular free radical level. GPx4-overexpressing cells displayed impaired tumor growth, reduced proliferation, altered angiogenesis and decreased expression of clinically relevant cytokine interleukin-8 and C-reactive protein. Moreover, GPx4 overexpression impaired migration of endothelial cells in vitro , and enhanced expression of thrombospondin 1, an endogenous inhibitor of angiogenesis. In patients, GPx4 expression in tumors positively correlated with survival and was linked to pathways which regulate cell proliferation, motility, tissue remodelling, immune response and M1 macrophage polarization. The patient data largely confirmed experimental findings especially in a subclass of poor prognosis tumors with high proliferation. GPx4 suppresses formation and progression of HCC by inhibition of angiogenesis and tumor cell proliferation as well as by immune-mediated mechanisms. Modification of GPx4 expression may represent a novel tool for HCC prevention or treatment.

Glacial cycles of the late Quaternary are shaped by the asymmetrically varying mass balance of continental ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere. The surface mass balance is mostly positive during about four precssional periods and turns strongly negative at glacial terminations. The surface mass balance is governed by processes of ablation and accumulation. Here two ablation schemes, namely the positive-degree-day (PDD) method and the surface energy balance (SEB) approach, are compared in transient simulations of the last glacial cycle with an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. The standard version of the CLIMBER-2 model simulates ice volume variations reasonably close to reconstructions. It uses the SEB approach which comprises fluxes of short-wave and long-wave radiation and of sensible and latent heat and accounts explicitly for snow albedo changes from dust deposition and snow aging. The PDD-driven ablation is computed offline in ensemble simulations to study the sensitivity with respect to short-term temperature variability and to melt factors for snow and ice. With standard literature values, the anomaly between the 130 ka-long ablation series from the two schemes is minimized but, more suitable are smaller values for inception than for termination and larger values for ice sheets in America than in Europe. Accordingly, PDD-online simulations require smaller values for inception than for termination to reproduce global ice volume variations. However, a reproduction at inception involves afterward excessive ice volume growth up to twice as large as reconstructed at LGM while a reproduction at termination implies ice volume growth about half as reconstructed at LGM. The PDD-online simulation with standard values generates at LGM a huge sea level drop of 250 m and a global cooling of 8 °C. The PDD-online simulation reproducing the LGM ice volume produces insufficient ablation at the turning point from glacial to interglacial climate, hence termination is delayed. According to our simulations, the SEB approach including effects of changing snow albedo, in particular at the American ice sheet margins, proves superior for simulating glacial cycles.

Rye (Secale cereale L.) is an exceptionally climate-resilient cereal crop, used extensively to produce improved wheat varieties via introgressive hybridization and possessing the entire repertoire of genes necessary to enable hybrid breeding. Rye is allogamous and only recently domesticated, thus giving cultivated ryes access to a diverse and exploitable wild gene pool. To further enhance the agronomic potential of rye, we produced a chromosome-scale annotated assembly of the 7.9-gigabase rye genome and extensively validated its quality by using a suite of molecular genetic resources. We demonstrate applications of this resource with a broad range of investigations. We present findings on cultivated rye’s incomplete genetic isolation from wild relatives, mechanisms of genome structural evolution, pathogen resistance, low-temperature tolerance, fertility control systems for hybrid breeding and the yield benefits of rye–wheat introgressions., A chromosome-scale genome assembly of rye inbred line ‘Lo7’ provides insights into its incomplete genetic isolation from wild relatives, mechanisms of genome structural evolution and the yield benefits of rye–wheat introgressions.

The exceptional diversity of maize (Zea mays) is the backbone of modern heterotic patterns and hybrid breeding. Historically, US farmers exploited this variability to establish today’s highly productive Corn Belt inbred lines from blends of dent and flint germplasm pools. Here, we report high qualityde novogenome sequences of the four European flint lines EP1, F7, DK105 and PE0075 assembled to pseudomolecules with scaffold N50 ranging between 6.1 to 10.4 Mb. Comparative analyses with the two US Corn Belt genomes B73 and PH207 elucidates the pronounced differences between both germplasm groups. While overall syntenic order and consolidated gene annotations reveal only moderate pan-genomic differences, whole genome alignments delineating the core and dispensable genome, and the analysis of repeat structures, heterochromatic knobs and orthologous long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTRs) unveil the extreme dynamics of the maize genome. Haplotypes derived from core genome SNPs demonstrate the tessellation of modern maize resulting from a complex breeding history. The high quality genome sequences of the flint pool are a crucial complement to the maize pan-genome and provide an important tool to study maize improvement at a genome scale and to enhance modern hybrid breeding.

Rye production in European growing areas is constrained by the soilborne cereal mosaic virus (SBCMV) and the wheat spindle streak mosaic virus (WSSMV). To date, no European rye cultivars are known to exhibit resistance against these viruses. In this study, we pursued a quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping strategy to identify genomic regions for resistance to SBCMV and WSSMV in rye. Three populations, each comprising 100 lines segregating for resistance to SBCMV and/or WSSMV, were evaluated for disease response at two years in three locations in Germany where soils are naturally infested with SBCMV and WSSMV. In the combined analysis across environments, one QTL for SBCMV resistance on chromosome 5R explained 31.9% of the phenotypic variation in one of the populations. For WSSMV resistance, one QTL explaining up to 64.0% of the phenotypic variation was detected on chromosome 7R in each of the three populations. On the Triticeae homoeologous group 5, we found evidence for synteny of the major QTL for SBCMV resistance between the wheat and rye genomes.

// Eva Bauer 1 , Michaela Schlederer 1,2 , Ruth Scheicher 3 , Jaqueline Horvath 1,4 , Petra Aigner 1 , Ana-Iris Schiefer 2 , Renate Kain 2 , Heinz Regele 2 , Gregor Hoermann 5 , Gunter Steiner 6,7 , Lukas Kenner 1,2,8 , Veronika Sexl 3 , Andreas Villunger 9,10 , Richard Moriggl 1,5,11 and Dagmar Stoiber 1,4 1 Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cancer Research, Vienna, Austria 2 Clinical Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 3 Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria 4 Institute of Pharmacology, Center for Physiology and Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 5 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 6 Cluster Arthritis and Rehabilitation, Ludwig Boltzmann Society, Vienna, Austria 7 Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine III, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 8 Unit of Pathology of Laboratory Animals, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria 9 Division of Developmental Immunology, Biocenter, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria 10 Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute, Innsbruck, Austria 11 Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetics, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria Correspondence to: Dagmar Stoiber, email: // Keywords : ETV6/RUNX1, BCL2, glomerulonephritis, lymphoma, autoimmunity, Immunology and Microbiology Section, Immune response, Immunity Received : September 11, 2015 Accepted : January 31, 2016 Published : February 23, 2016 Abstract The t(12;21) translocation generating the ETV6/RUNX1 fusion gene represents the most frequent chromosomal rearrangement in childhood leukemia. Presence of ETV6/RUNX1 alone is usually not sufficient for leukemia onset, and additional genetic alterations have to occur in ETV6/RUNX1-positive cells to cause transformation. We have previously generated an ETV6/RUNX1 transgenic mouse model where the expression of the fusion gene is restricted to CD19-positive B cells. Since BCL2 family members have been proposed to play a role in leukemogenesis, we investigated combined effects of ETV6/RUNX1 with exogenous expression of the antiapoptotic protein BCL2 by crossing ETV6/RUNX1 transgenic animals with Vav-BCL2 transgenic mice. Strikingly, co-expression of ETV6/RUNX1 and BCL2 resulted in significantly shorter disease latency in mice, indicating oncogene cooperativity. This was associated with faster development of follicular B cell lymphoma and exacerbated immune complex glomerulonephritis. ETV6/RUNX1-BCL2 double transgenic animals displayed increased B cell numbers and immunoglobulin titers compared to Vav-BCL2 transgenic mice. This led to pronounced deposition of immune complexes in glomeruli followed by accelerated development of immune complex glomerulonephritis. Thus, our study reveals a previously unrecognized synergism between ETV6/RUNX1 and BCL2 impacting on malignant disease and autoimmunity.

Endostatin, the C-terminal fragment of type XVIII collagen, was shown to be one of the most potent endothelial cell-specific inhibitors of angiogenesis. As altered circulating endostatin concentration is associated with impaired kidney function, new tools for measuring endostatin in rodents may be helpful to further investigate and understand its role within kidney disease progression. A novel and commercially available ELISA for the quantification of mouse and rat endostatin was developed and validated according to international quality guidelines including the parameters specificity, robustness, accuracy, dilution linearity, precision, limit of detection (LOD) and lower limit of quantification (LLOQ). Endostatin and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) concentration were measured in mice with a glomerulonephritis phenotype. The validation revealed that within the range of 0.5–32 nmol/L the immunoassay is robust and highly specific for the measurement of rodent endostatin with high sensitivity (LOD 0.24 nmol/L, LLOQ 0.5 nmol/L) and good reproducibility (intra- and inter-assay CV

Key message A genomic segment on maize chromosome 7 influences carbon isotope composition, water use efficiency, and leaf growth sensitivity to drought, possibly by affecting stomatal properties. Abstract Climate change is expected to decrease water availability in many agricultural production areas around the globe. Therefore, plants with improved ability to grow under water deficit are urgently needed. We combined genetic, phenomic, and physiological approaches to understand the relationship between growth, stomatal conductance, water use efficiency, and carbon isotope composition in maize (Zea mays L.). Using near-isogenic lines derived from a maize introgression library, we analysed the effects of a genomic region previously identified as affecting carbon isotope composition. We show stability of trait expression over several years of field trials and demonstrate in the phenotyping platform Phenodyn that the same genomic region also influences the sensitivity of leaf growth to evaporative demand and soil water potential. Our results suggest that the studied genomic region affecting carbon isotope discrimination also harbours quantitative trait loci playing a role in maize drought sensitivity possibly via stomatal behaviour and development. We propose that the observed phenotypes collectively originate from altered stomatal conductance, presumably via abscisic acid. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00122-018-3193-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.