The cotton (Gossypium spp.) fiber is a unique elongated cell that is useful for investigating cell differentiation. Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of factors such as sugar metabolism, the cytoskeleton, and hormones, which are commonly known to be involved in plant cell development, while the secondary metabolites have been less regarded. By mining public data and comparing an...

The interactions of nanoparticles with polymer hosts have important implications for directing the macroscopic properties of composite fibers, yet little is known about such interactions with hierarchically ordered natural polymers due to the difficulty of achieving uniform dispersion of nanoparticles within semi-crystalline natural fiber. In this study we have homogeneously dispersed silver na...

Mechanical interlocking is widely applied in industry and general lives of human beings. In this work, we realized the control of locking or sliding states of cotton fibers on the metal surfaces with slightly different textures through traditional machining. Three types of sliding states, i.e., locking, one-way sliding, and two-way sliding have been achieved. It is found that the locking or sli...

Imposing a moderate level of nutrient deficiency may be an effective management strategy to limit vegetative growth and enhance maturity of Pima cotton (Gossypium barbadense L.). Whether such deficiency affects fiber quality of American Pima cotton, however, is not well known. A field study was conducted in 1991 and 1992 to determine the fiber quality responses of Pima cotton to nitrogen and ph...

We demonstrate the utility of multimodal coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy for the study of structured condensed carbohydrate systems. Simultaneous second-harmonic generation (SHG) and spectrally-scanned CARS microscopy was used to elucidate structure, alignment, and density in cellulose cotton fibers and in starch grains undergoing rapid heat-moisture swelling. Our result...

Cytoskeleton assembly plays an important role in determining cotton fiber cell length and morphology and is developmentally regulated. As in other plant cells, it is not clear how cytoskeletal assembly in fibers is regulated. Recently, several Rac/Rop GTPases in Arabidopsis were shown to regulate isotropic and polar cell growth of root hairs and pollen tubes by controlling assembly of the cytos...

There currently are no data on using reduced tillage for flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) production when double-cropped after cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in the southeastern USA. This study evaluated how tillage and subsoiling influenced double-cropped flax and cotton productivity and quality under conditions in the southeastern USA. An irrigated study on a loamy sand soil (Eunola loamy sand) ...

Salinity is a common abiotic stress during the cotton growing season. Salinity stress causes a series of negative effects on cotton growth, yield, and fiber quality. Although cotton is considered as moderately sensitive to saline with a . dS m-1 threshold salinity level, its yield, quality, and seed germination are affected by different salinity levels. Therefore, identification of salt-toleran...

To explore lint fiber initiation-related proteins in allotetraploid cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), a comparative proteomic analysis was performed between wild-type cotton (Xu-142) and its fuzzless-lintless mutant (Xu-142-fl) at five developmental time points for lint fiber initiation from -3 to +3 days post-anthesis (dpa). Using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) combined with mass spe...

The cotton fibers are seed trichomes that elongate from the ovule epidermis. Polar lipids are required for the quick enlargement of cell membrane and fiber cell growth, however, how lipids are transported from the ovules into the developing fibers remains less known. Here, we reported the functional characterization of GhLTPG1, a GPI-anchored lipid transport protein, during cotton fiber elongat...