Cloning and Expression Analysis of Histone Zm-H3 Gene in Different Maize Pollen under High Temperature Stress

To understand differential expression of histone gene Zm-H3 in different high temperature-tolerant maizes, the two maize varieties Zhongdi 88（high temperature-tolerant variety） and Xianyu 335（high temperature-sensitive variety） were used as plant materials to cloned a histone Zm-H3 gene via series of steps including total RNA extract, mRNA purification, reverse transcription, library construction and high-throughput sequencing. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the Zm-H3 gene was located on chromosome 6 of maize with a full-length cDNA of 904 bp and encoded a protein with 136 amino acids. The physical and chemical properties, functional sites and structure of the protein were further analyzed. High-throughput transcriptome sequencing results showed that the expression of Zm-H3 gene was significantly different in the two maizes, with high expression in Zhongdi 88, which was 2.08 folds higher than that in Xianyu 335. The experimental results could lay a molecular foundation for the application of maize histone Zm-H3 gene, and also provided reference for the cloning and expression analysis of other genes.