Fig. 4: Validamycin A treatment is associated with increased trehalose accumulation and greater biomass production in maize.

a Representative images showing maize seedlings at 21 days after planting (dap) grown under Full and -N conditions combined with validamycin A treatment (ValA) or without (Control). b Changes in trehalose abundance in root tissue in response to validamycin A treatment across conditions. N = 5 biological replicates each consisting of pool tissue. c Changes in the ratio of shoot-to-root dry biomass in 3-week-old maize seedlings grown across treatments and conditions. N = 15 independently measured plants grown across three distinct experiments. d, e Changes in the above ground dry weight of three week old maize and paspalum plants across treatments and conditions. N = 15 independently measured plants grown across three distinct experiments. f Biomass accumulation of ValA treated and control maize plants at the late vegetative stage. N = 10 independently measured plants. g Distribution of observed Ka/Ks (the ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitution rates) for a set of 27 trehalose metabolism genes syntenically conserved across paspalum (Pv, Paspalum vaginatum, blue), foxtail millet (Si, Setaria italica, orange), sorghum (Sb, Sorghum bicolor, green), and Oropetium (Ot, Oropetium thomaeum, red). Statistical comparisons were conducted using two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Box plots shown in panels b–g are defined as in the Fig. 1 legend. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.