we performed comparative proteomic analysis of wild-type B104 and ZmCTU2-overexpressing lines. Seedlings at three-leaf-stage were grown under normal temperature condition (NC; 25°C for 12 days) and subsequently subjected to heat stress (HS; 43°C for 8 hours following NC growth). Using tandem mass tag (TMT)-based quantitative proteomics, we identified 9,422 high-confidence proteins, with differential expression proteins (DEPs) defined by |fold change| ≥1.2 and P < 0.05. Notably, ZmCTU2-overexpressing lines exhibited more pronounced proteomic remodeling under HS compared to wild-type B104, with 1,196 proteins (12.7%) upregulated and 2,041 proteins (21.7%) downregulated, compared to 917 upregulated (9.7%) and 1,875 downregulated (19.9%) proteins in B104