Working group session:
Functional Genomics
Presentation type:
poster
Authors:
Zhang, Xianlong
Presenter:
Zhang, Xianlong
Correspondent:
Zhang, Xianlong
Abstract:
As a main economical and oil crop, cotton was cultivated in many countries. But the domestication of cotton by human beings made this crop loss many genes which made cultivars vulnerable to biotic and abiotic stresses. Meanwhile, due to more attentions to high yield, the modern cultivars of cotton show worse fiber quality with high yield improved somewhere. To cope with these weaknesses, we have been trying to discover genes conferring fiber quality and diverse resistances. Some genes were functionally evaluated via genetic transformation. We found that a series of genes involves in fiber development, such as GbPDF1, GbTCP, GhPSK, and GhCaM7, even a metabolic pathway such as flavonoid was proved to be involved in fiber development. We are sure these results will contribute to fiber quality improvement in the coming breeding program. Verticillium wilt disease is threatening cotton production in China, even causing 30% yield loss. We found several signaling pathways contribute to disease resistance, the key genes in these pathways are under functional analysis. Besides above, some genes conferring high temperature tolerance and drought tolerance were proved to have high potential in abiotic tolerance improvement in breeding cotton.