ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Symbiotic Interactions
Genotype-specific responses of maize plants to Funneliformis mosseae under drought stress: phenomic and transcriptomic insights
Provisionally accepted
Eszter Virag1,2
Zoltán Zombori3Miklós Hóvári3Géza Hegedűs4László Sass3
Györgyi Ferenc3Dénes Dudits3
Katalin Posta5*- 1Debreceni Egyetem, Debrecen, Hungary
- 2Gyogynovenykutato Intezet Kft, Budakalász, Hungary
- 3HUN-REN Szegedi Biologiai Kutatokozpont, Szeged, Hungary
- 4Pannon Egyetem, Veszprém, Hungary
- 5Magyar Agrar- es Elettudomanyi Egyetem, Gödöllő, Hungary
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Drought is one of the most critical abiotic constraints limiting maize productivity, yet the host genotype-specific mechanisms through which arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) influence drought resilience remain insufficiently defined. To address this gap, we examined how Funneliformis mosseae (BEG12) modulates drought tolerance, root plasticity, and heterosis in two contrasting maize inbreds (tolerant K1, sensitive K2) and their hybrid (KH). Maize plants were grown under controlled pot conditions at well-watered (60% moisture content) or drought-stressed (30% moisture content) soil conditions, with or without AMF inoculation. Integrated phenomic, biomass, and transcriptomic analyses revealed distinct, plant genotype-dependent AMF-trigerred responses. In K1plants, AMF maintained drought tolerance by stabilizing photosynthetic performance via sustained expression of PSI, PSII, LHCb, and Calvin-cycle genes, together with the activation of CYP450 71A1 and CONSTANS-like 3, implicating auxin-linked regulation in stress adaptation. In K2 plants, drought markedly suppressed photosynthetic gene expression, whereas AMF triggered a strong root-system expansion accompanied by the induction of indole-3-acetaldehyde oxidase, auxin-binding protein 1, CORONATINE-INSENSITIVE 1, and tasselseed-2, indicating hormone-driven root plasticity and altered reproductive signaling. In KH plants, selective activation of RbcX and heterosis-related genes supported biomass stability and consistent flowering, although AMF exerted limited modulation of hybrid vigor. These findings uncover distinct, genotype-specific molecular strategies by which AMF enhance drought resilience, revealing that sensitive inbreed genotypes benefit primarily through root plasticity, while tolerant ones sustain photosynthetic stability. Our results highlight the potential of This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article targeted AMF–plant genotype combinations to improve water-use efficiency and sustainable maize production under drought stress.
Keywords: Arbuscular mycorrhizae, drought tolerance, Genotype specificity, Phenomics, Transcriptomics
Received: 11 Oct 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Virag, Zombori, Hóvári, Hegedűs, Sass, Ferenc, Dudits and Posta. 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: Katalin Posta
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