Fig. 6

The earlier onset of the significantly enriched functional categories in ILa kernel than that in ILb kernel, by functional analysis of the DEGs from different transcriptome pair during early kernel development stage of ILa and ILb. (a) The DEGs from different transcriptome pair at different development stage showed similar GO term enrichment. Much more DEGs were enriched in all the top-enriched terms in a8/a5 than that in b8/b5 transcriptome pair, especially the term “response to auxin stimulus”, “response to hormone stimulus”. (b) The top-enriched KEGG pathways from different transcriptome pair at different kernel development stage of ILa and ILb. The biggest difference in transcriptome reprogramming between ILa and ILb is at 5 to 8 DAP, there are 3 pathways, “Starch and sucrose metabolism”, “plant hormone signal transduction” and “phenylpropanoid biosynthesis”, displayed significant enrichment in ILa but not in ILb at 5 to 8 DAP. While the DEGs that were enriched in all the top-enriched pathways from a10/a8 were less than that from b10/b8 transcriptome pair