Towards the Identification of Photoperiod Genes in Cotton

Induced mutations can be used to produce cotton without day-length sensitivity. This technique can allow wild and primitive cotton germplasm to be fully utilized in improvement programs. Most of the cotton exotic germplasm are photoperiod-sensitive that does not flower in long-day conditions of summer cultivations.

 A group of researchers from the United States and Uzbekistan have presented conversion studies in cotton that turned photoperiod sensitive germplasm into day-neutral (where flowering is not affected by day-length). The researchers used 32P irradiation to derive the cotton mutants. The mutants were subsequently examined by using 250 microsatellite (SSR) primer pairs to determine patterns of mutation in the SSR loci.

It was found out that the induced mutagenesis both increased and decreased the allele sizes of SSRs in mutants with the higher mutation rate in SSRs containing dinucleotide motifs. The researchers have also determined that there was significant modification of mutants from their original wild types, with most mutants having improved agronomic qualities. The results may be useful in understanding photoperiod-related mutations, and can aid in the identification of photoperiodic flowering genes in cotton in the future.

For the complete paper published by the Journal of Heredity, please visit http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/esm007v1.