Abstract
SummaryCotton fibre is an important natural fibre for the textile industry. The number of fibre initials determines the lint percentage, which is an important factor for cotton fibre yield. Although fibre development has been described by transcriptomic analysis, the mechanism by which the long noncoding RNA manipulates the initiation of lint and fuzz fibres remains unknown. In this study, three lines with different lint percentages were developed by crossing Xu142 with its fibreless mutant Xu142 fl. We collected the epidermal cells from the ovules with attached fibres at 0 and 5 days post anthesis (DPA) from Xu142, the fibreless mutant Xu142 fl and the three lint percent diversified lines for deep transcriptome sequencing. A total of 2641 novel genes, 35 802 long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and 2262 circular RNAs (circRNAs) were identified, of which 645 lncRNAs were preferentially expressed in the fibreless mutant Xu142 fl and 651 lncRNAs were preferentially expressed in the fibre‐attached lines. We demonstrated the functional roles of the three lncRNAs in fibre development via a virus‐induced gene silencing (VIGS) system. Our results showed that silencing XLOC_545639 and XLOC_039050 in Xu142 fl increased the number of fibre initials on the ovules, but silencing XLOC_079089 in Xu142 resulted in a short fibre phenotype. This study established the transcriptomic repertoires in cotton fibre initiation and provided evidence for the potential functions of lncRNAs in fibre development.
Highlights
Cotton fibre, a single cell of the seed epidermis, is a major source of raw materials for the textile industry
To analyse the number of genes controlling the LM fibre phenotype, 251 seeds collected from one single plant of the tenth generation of LM lines were planted in the field, and the mature seeds attached with fibre were collected from each single plant
Phenotypic characterization showed that 56, 131 and 64 plants were categorized into the LF, LM and LL phenotypes, respectively, which was in accordance with the Mendelian genetic law with a 1:2:1 proportion (Figure S1)
Summary
A single cell of the seed epidermis, is a major source of raw materials for the textile industry. Cotton fibre development goes through four overlapping stages: initiation, elongation, secondary cell wall synthesis and maturation (Haigler et al, 2012). The class IV HD-ZIP family transcription factor GaHOX1, which could rescue trichome formation of the gl mutant in Arabidopsis, may be involved in cotton fibre initiation (Guan et al, 2008). Another transcription factor from the class IV HD-ZIP family, GhHOX3, positively controls fibre elongation in cotton (Shan et al, 2014). A bHLH transcription factor, GhDEL65, which could rescue trichome initiation in the Arabidopsis gl3egl double mutant, was involved in regulating cotton fibre elongation (Shangguan et al, 2016). Many transcription factors were identified in the development of cotton fibres, the entire gene network controlling cotton fibre initiation remains unclear
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