Cotton fiber development at the stages of elongation and secondary wall synthesis determines the traits of fiber length and strength. To date, the mechanisms controlling the progression of these two phases remain elusive. In this work, the function of a fiber-preferential actin-binding protein (GhPFN2) was characterized by cytological and molecular studies on the fibers of transgenic green-colo...

Plant microRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to play essential roles in the regulation of gene expression. In this study, small RNA deep sequencing was applied to explore novel miRNAs expressed in elongating cotton fibers. A total of 46 novel and 96 known miRNAs, primarily derived from the corresponding specific loci in genome of Gossypium arboreum, were identified. 64 miRNAs were shown to be diffe...

The Uster ® High Volume Instrument (HVI ®) is used in the U.S. to classify cotton, including cotton color. The cotton color parameters measured on the HVI are Rd (diffuse reflectance) and +b (yellow-ness). Comments from industry have indicated that some cotton bales appeared to have changed significantly in +b (yellowness) from their initial HVI color measurements. As a result of these reports,...

Transcription factors (TFs) play an important role in the regulation of plant growth and development. The study of the structure and function of TFs represents a research frontier in plant molecular biology. The findings of these studies will provide significant information regarding genetic improvement traits in crops. Currently, a large number of TFs have been cloned, and their function has b...

Fiber quality is one of the most important agronomic traits of cotton, and understanding the genetic basis of its target traits will accelerate improvements to cotton fiber quality. In this study, a panel comprising 355 upland cotton accessions was used to perform genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of five fiber quality traits in four environments. A total of 16, 10 and 7 SNPs were associa...

Cotton seed trichomes are the most important source of natural fibers globally. The major fiber thickness properties influence the price of the raw material, and the quality of the finished product. The recessive immature fiber (im) gene reduces the degree of fiber cell wall thickening by a process that was previously shown to involve mitochondrial function in allotetraploid Gossypium hirsutum ...

A novel kinesin, GhKCH1, has been identified from cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) fibers. GhKCH1 has a centrally located kinesin catalytic core, a signature neck peptide of minus end-directed kinesins, and a unique calponin homology (CH) domain at its N terminus. GhKCH1 and other CH domain-containing kinesins (KCHs) belong to a distinct branch of the minus end-directed kinesin subfamily. To date th...

Pima cotton (Gossypium barbadense) is widely cultivated because of its long, strong seed trichomes ('fibers') used for premium textiles. These agronomically advanced fibers were derived following domestication and thousands of years of human-mediated crop improvement. To gain an insight into fiber development and evolution, we conducted comparative proteomic and transcriptomic profiling of deve...

Cotton is considered as the foremost commercially important fiber crop and is deemed as the backbone of the textile industry. The productivity of cotton crop, worldwide, is severely hampered by the occurrence of pests, weeds, pathogens apart from various environmental factors. Several beneficial agronomic traits, viz., early maturity, improved fiber quality, heat tolerance, etc. have been succe...

Five upland cotton cultivars were crossed in a complete diallel crossing system to investigate inheritance pattern and combining ability of parents for different fiber quality traits like staple length, fiber strength, fineness and uniformity. The study was carried out in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during the years 2005-07. Highly signif...