PJB-2018-963
OMICS-BASED IDENTIFICATION OF THE KEY GENES AND MODULES ASSOCIATED WITH INOSITOL-PHOSPHATE METABOLISM SPECIFICALLY REGULATING COTTON FIBER ELONGATION
Yue Zhao
Abstract
Cotton fiber elongation is a complicated process involving thousands of genes. It mainly affects fiber yield and quality. Transcriptomic methods were used here to assess the molecular mechanism that underlies cotton fiber elongation, and fatty acid synthesis, gibberellin, and ethylene were characterized to assess their effects on cotton fiber elongation. Although genome-wide analysis has provided comprehensive information regarding fiber elongation, the key genes and modules related to cotton fiber elongation are not fully understood.
Here, 249 genes specifically expressed during the elongation of cotton fibers were found to be up-regulated and 489 down-regulated. Most genes specific to fiber elongation are enriched in the functional categories of phospholipids synthesis, sugar metabolism, and protein import and export pathways. More than 80% of fiber-specific genes are highly inter-correlated, forming 6 modules controlling the activities of the detected pathways. The hub genes used in the present search were key enzymes in three pathways or their transcriptional regulators. The loci of most hub genes in chromosomes were found to be consistent with the mapped QTLs of fiber quality. More importantly, up to 50 genes are coexpressed with the hub genes and their encoding proteins constitute the interaction networks.
The methods involved mining key genes and modules during cotton fiber elongation based on large scale RNA-seq datasets from different resources. Investigating the activities of the hub genes and their interacted proteins can facilitate understanding of the mechanism underlying fiber elongation. The hub genes could serve as the candidates in transgenic breeding for the improvement of cotton fiber quality.
Keywords
Cotton, fiber elongation, omics-based, module, inositol-phosphate metabolism
To Cite this article:
Download
