Abstract
To provide a resource for cotton genetics and breeding, an interspecific hybridization between Gossypium hirsutum cv. Emian22 and G. barbadense acc. 3–79 was made. A population of 54 BILs (backcross inbred lines, BC1F8) was developed with the aim of transferring G. barbadense genes into G. hirsutum in order to genetically analyze these genes’ function in a G. hirsutum background and create new germplasms for breeding. Preliminary investigation of the morphological traits showed that the BILs had diverse variations in plant architecture, seed size, and fuzz color; the related traits of yield and fiber quality evaluated in 4 environments also showed abundant phenotypic variation. In order to explore the molecular diversity of the BIL population, 446 SSR markers selected at an average genetic distance of 10 cM from our interspecific linkage map were used to genotype the BIL population. A total of 393 polymorphic loci accounting for 84.4% MAF (major allele frequency) > 0.05 and 922 allele loci were detected, and the Shannon diversity index (I) was 0.417 per locus. The average introgression segment length was 16.24 cM, and an average of 29.53 segments were introgressed in each BIL line with an average background recovery of 79.8%. QTL mapping revealed 58 QTL associated with fiber quality and yield traits, and 47 favored alleles derived from the donor parent were discovered. This study demonstrated that the interspecific BIL population was enriched with much phenotypic and molecular variation which could be a resource for cotton genetics and breeding.
Highlights
Cotton is one of the most important crops in the world, providing natural fiber for the textile spin industry
The standard deviation and variation coefficient showed that phenotypic variation was abundant, with variation coefficients ranging from 1.34% (FU in E3 and E4) to 47.24% (BW in E2)
The populations of BC1, BILs and CSSLs constructed from G. hirsutum and G. barbadense have been reported [21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]; the G. hirsutum varieties were TM-1 and SG747, and the G. barbadense varieties were Pima S-7 and Hai7124
Summary
Cotton is one of the most important crops in the world, providing natural fiber for the textile spin industry. The development of cotton production is of great importance. Germplasm innovation plays a decisive role in improving new cotton varieties. Since the 1950s, many cotton germplasms have been developed in China. G. hirsutum accounts for 95% of the cotton planting area [1]. The planting of G. barbadense accessions has been limited, they contain elite genes related to fiber quality traits, and cotton breeders are attempting
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