Developmental And Gene Expression Analysis Of A Fuzzless Mutant Of Gossypium Hirsutum

Cotton fiber that is an important crude fiber is the significant native material in textile industry. With the development of textile industry, the better qualitative cotton fiber is demanded urgly by new textile techonology. Therefore, the study of cotton fiber development and its relative gene expression and regulation have the important biology theoretic significance and the value of in-service use. In the most of study, the fiber elongation is focused on, however, the initiation phase is seldomly reported. The revelant genes expression which involv fiber initiation, are investigated in this study. At present, the critical genes controlled the long fiber development are identified from the cotton, meanwhile, the hormone regulation way controlled the elongation of cotton fiber cell is discovered. However, the molecular mechanism of cotton fiber developnent is still reported scarcely. The objective of this study is to compare the transcript profiling between the cotton fuzzless mutant and its isogenic line in order to identify the genes which are involved in cotton fiber development. Using SEM to examine the cellular events of fiber cell development in the mutant GZnn, we find that the mutant is not only delayed in the process of fiber cell formation and elongation but also contains reduced number of fiber cells. By differential display RT-PCR, we obtain 12 differential expressed cDNA fragments, among which MS3 shows high degree of similarity to myb family transcription factor and is exclusively expressed in ovule before anthesis (-3-0 DPA) in the mutant, but not expressed in TM-1. Therefore, we suspect that MS3 might be involved in early differentiation of fiber cell. Further investigation on the genes which play key roles during this process is of help to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the differentiation and development of cotton fiber s, and this will contribute to cotton genetic improvement.