全球变暖引起气候变化，严重影响植物生长发育，并对粮食安全构成威胁。植物本身具有对适宜温度的响应能力(如热形态发生)，并能承受一定范围的高温胁迫。在分子水平上，许多小分子在维持生长和防御机制之间的平衡发挥着关键作用，通过微调对外部刺激的响应来确保作物的最佳产量。因此，了解植物响应热应激的分子机制，解析植物适应热胁迫的的生物过程变得至关重要。在本综述中，我们概述了植物热响应基因网络，论述了植物如何感知高温并启动细胞和代谢反应，最终使其能够适应不利的生长条件。最后，我们还对植物生长及对热应激响应之间的权衡作出讨论，提出调控植物响应热应激的调节网络，这也将为全面挖掘耐热候选基因并应用于农业生产提供帮助。

氮、磷、钾是玉米生长发育所必需的大量矿质元素，对玉米产量和品质形成都至关重要。玉米籽粒灌浆过程中大量元素浓度的动态变化和积累的遗传基础仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们以DH1M和T877杂交产生的206个重组自交系为材料，对授粉后6个时间点的籽粒氮、磷和钾浓度进行了测定，并计算不同时间区间内氮、磷和钾的净变化量。在重组自交系群体中，氮、磷和钾的浓度和净变化均观察到丰富的表型变异。数量性状位点(QTL)定位共发现了41个QTL，其中氮、磷和钾浓度分别为有17、16和14个QTL。条件QTL定位发现了39个QTL与氮、磷、钾浓度净变化相关。结合QTL、基因表达、共表达分析和比较基因组数据，我们分别鉴定出44、36和44个候选基因与氮、磷和钾浓度相关，其中GRMZM2G371058与氮浓度相关，编码一个Dof转录因子，GRMZM2G113967与钾浓度相关，编码一个激酶蛋白CIPK。本文研究结果加深对玉米籽粒发育过程中氮、磷、钾积累的遗传机制的认识，为玉米养分浓度的遗传改良提供了有价值的候选基因。

Humankind has been through different periods of agricultural improvement aiming at enhancing our food supply and the performance of food crops. In recent years, whole genome sequencing and deep understanding of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms have facilitated new plant breeding approaches to meet the challenge of growing population, dwindling resources, and changing climate. Here we proposed a simple and fast molecular breeding method, marker-assisted reverse breeding (MARB), which will revert any maize hybrid into inbred lines with any level of required similarity to its original parent lines. Since all the pericarp DNA of a hybrid is from the maternal parent, whereas one half of the embryo DNA is from the maternal parent and the other half from the paternal parent, so we firstly extract DNA from seed embryo and pericarp of a selected elite hybrid separately and then we derived the genotypes of the two parents with high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chips. The following marker-assisted selection was performed based on an Illumina low-density SNP chip designed with 192 SNPs polymorphic between the two parental genotypes, which were uniformly distributed on 10 maize chromosomes. This method has the advantages of fast speed, fixed heterotic mode, and quick recovery of beneficial parental genotypes compared to traditional pedigree breeding using elite hybrids. Meanwhile, MARB has the advantage of not requiring sophisticated transformation and double haploid (DH) technologies over RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated reverse breeding. In addition, MARB can also be used with feed corn harvested from big farms, which is often similar to F2 populations, and the relevant transgenes in the population can be eliminated by marker-assisted selection. As a result, the whole global commercial maize hybrids can be utilized as germplasm for breeding with MARB technology. Starting with an F2 population derived from an elite hybrid, our experiment indicates that with three cycles of marker-assisted selection, selected lines could recover over 80% of the parental genotypes and associated beneficial genes in a fixed heterotic mode. The success application of MARB in maize suggests that this technology is applicable to any hybrid crop to breed new inbreds with improved hybrid performance but the same heterotic mode. As chip technology becomes cheap, it would be expected that polymorphism screening and following marker-assisted selection could be done with one all-purpose high density chip.Several issues associated with MARB were discussed, including its rationale, efficiency and advantages, along with food/ feed and environmental safety issues and applications of MARB in variety protection and marker-assisted plant breeding.