Transcriptional responses of inbred lines B73, B75 and B96 and resulting F1 lines to herbivory by Tetranychus urticae

The extreme generalist two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, which is documented to feed on more than 1100 plant hosts, is becoming an increasingly important agricultural pest. Historically, as studies of plant-herbivore interactions have focused largely on insects, considerably less research has investigated plant responses to spider mite herbivores, especially in grasses. To identify intraspecific differences in maize response to T. urticae, we collected RNA-seq data from three maize (Zea mays) inbred lines (B73, B75 and B49) as well as two F1 lines arising from crosses between B73 x B75 and B73 x B96. For each maize line, RNA-seq data was collected from uninfested leaves (control) and leaves infested with T. urticae for 24 hours. Overall design: The experiment was performed with four or eight (in the case of B73 only) biological replicates across each of the following (48 samples in total): control uninfested B73 (B73-C), T. urticae infested B73 (B73-T), control uninfested B75 (B75-C), T. urticae infested B75 (B75-T), control uninfested B96 (B96-C), T. urticae infested B96 (B96-T), control uninfested B73xB75 F1s (F1-B73-B75-C), T. urticae infested B73xB75 F1s (F1-B73-B75-T), control uninfested B73xB96 F1s (F1-B73-B96-C) and T. urticae infested B73-B96 F1s (F1-B73-B96-T). B73 replicates 1-4 should be used as references for all samples related to B96, while B73 replicates 5-8 should be used as references for all samples related to B75.

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