ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Bioinformatics
Evolutionary Conservation and Pre-Activated Immunity of the ZmNBS Gene Family in Maize
Provisionally accepted
- 1South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China
- 2Yazhouwan National Laboratory, Sanya, China
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The nucleotide-binding site (NBS) gene family plays a central role in plant immune defense. In this study, we systematically investigated the evolutionary patterns, structural diversity, and functional responsiveness of maize ZmNBS genes within a pan-genomic framework encompassing 26 inbred lines. We observed extensive presence-absence variation (PAV), distinguishing conserved "core" subgroups (e.g., ZmNBS31, ZmNBS17-19) from highly variable ones (e.g., ZmNBS1-10, ZmNBS43-60), thereby supporting a "core-adaptive" model of resistance gene evolution. Duplication mode analysis revealed subtype-specific preferences: canonical CNL/CN genes largely originated from dispersed duplications, while N-type genes were enriched in tandem duplications. Evolutionary rate analysis showed that whole-genome duplication (WGD)-derived genes exhibited strong purifying selection (low Ka/Ks), whereas tandem and proximal duplications (TD/PD) showed signs of relaxed or positive selection. Structural variants (SVs) were associated with altered motif structures and significantly impacted gene expression. Notably, ZmNBS31 emerged as a conserved, highly expressed gene under both stressed and control conditions, underscoring its potential role in basal immunity. Collectively, our results highlight how duplication mechanisms, SVs and selection pressures jointly shape the evolution of ZmNBS genes and provide a conceptual framework for identifying and improving broad-spectrum resistance genes in maize.
Keywords: ZmNBS family, Evolutionary patterns, presence-absence variation, structural variation, Gene Duplication
Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 11 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zhe Xu, xuzhe@stu.scau.edu.cn
Liying Feng, lyfengad@163.com
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