Abstract
Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is an economically important crop grown for natural fiber and seed oil production. DA1 is a ubiquitin receptor that determines final seed and organ size by restricting the period of cell proliferation. In the present study, we identified 7 DA1-like genes each in cultivated tetraploid (AADD) G. hirsutum and G. barbadense, and 4 and 3 DA1-like genes in their ancestral diploid G. arboreum (A2A2) and G. raimondii (D5D5), respectively. The 7 GhDA1 genes were confirmed to be distributed on four At and three Dt subgenome chromosomes in G. hirsutum. GhDA1-1A showed a high sequence similarity to AtDA1 in Arabidopsis, and they possessed the same functional domains, suggesting conserved functions. The overexpression of GhDA1-1AR301K in Arabidopsis significantly increased seed size and seed weight, indicating that GhDA1-1A is a promising target for cotton improvement. This study provides information on the molecular evolutionary properties of DA1-like genes in cotton, which will be useful for the genetic improvement of cotton.
Highlights
Organ size is one of the most important features and is regulated by complex developmental processes involving both internal and external signals (Cai et al, 2020)
Previous studies have shown that plants with large seeds exhibit better traits than those with small seeds on the basis of testing the effect of seed size on cotton seedling growth
To identify all the DA1-like proteins in cotton, BLASTP searches were performed against the diploid cotton (G. raimondii and G. arboreum) and tetraploid cotton (G. hirsutum and G. barbadense) protein databases using the AtDA1 and AtDAR1-7 protein sequences of Arabidopsis as queries
Summary
Organ size is one of the most important features and is regulated by complex developmental processes involving both internal and external signals (Cai et al, 2020). Seeds represent the core of plant life cycle traits and are involved in the mechanisms of plant diffusion, germination, seedling survival and overall reproductive success (Cardinal-McTeague et al, 2019; Keren et al, 2020). In contrast to the reproductive advantage of small-seeded species, the key advantage of larger seeds appears to be their tolerance to abiotic stresses such as shade or drought, and seed size is an important agronomic trait that greatly affects crop yield (Liu et al, 2020b). Previous studies have shown that plants with large seeds exhibit better traits than those with small seeds on the basis of testing the effect of seed size on cotton seedling growth. Large seeds exhibit more nutrient accumulation than small seeds, which may affect seed germination and even the growth and development of plants (Wang et al, 2008)
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