Biologically Relevant Methods to Test How Microbes Colonize Maize Styles (Silks): Case Study of a Pantoea Strain
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Maize silks (style) receive wind-transmitted pollen. Thereafter, male gametes travel through the silks to reach ovules. Pollinated silks contain a microbiome, members of which are predicted to promote host reproduction and abiotic/biotic stress tolerance during fertilization. It is unknown whether pollinated silk bacteria originate environmentally (air/pollen) or from maternal tissue. Methods are lacking to test microbial colonization of silks in their native habitat [on intact maize inflorescences (cobs) encased by husk leaves]. Current methods focus on naked silks attached to dehusked cob pieces. Here, two novel methods are presented to enable research on silk microbes in their native habitat. Method 1 tests whether silk-associated bacteria with potential environmental origins are attracted toward ovules. Method 2 distinguishes whether a microbe colonizes silks from the environment or maternal parent. Biosafety containment was enabled by housing microbe-treated cobs in large jars. Using these methods, a model bacterial isolate from fertilization-stage silks (DsRed-tagged Pantoea-E04) was shown to colonize husk-covered silks after inoculating exposed silk tips; E04 could not colonize from the cob base, suggesting an environmental origin. In support, E04 colonized silks more frequently when cobs were uncut and oriented vertically. These protocols will enable more biologically relevant investigation of silk microbiomes and pathogens.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".