Annual Review of Plant Biology publishes the review of academician Zhu Yuxian on the recent advances in cotton research
On January 11, an overview entitled “Recent Advances and Future Perspectives in Cotton Research” is published online in Annual Review of Plant Biology, an authoritative botanical periodical. The paper is written by Zhu Yuxian, Huang Gai, Chen Xiaoya and Huang Jinquan. Zhu Yuxian is academician and Huang Gai is a doctoral student at the Institute for Advanced Studies of WHU. Huang also works at School of Life Sciences of Peking University. Chen Xiaoya is academician and Huang Jinquan is a postdoctoral researcher at CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences.
The paper published online in Annual Review of Plant Biology
Cotton is not only the world’s most important natural fiber crop, but also an ideal system in which to study genome evolution, polyploidization, and cell elongation. With the assembly of five different cotton genomes, a cotton-specific whole-genome duplication with an allopolyploidization process that combined the A- and D-genomes became evident. All existing A-genomes seemed to originate from the A0-genome as a common ancestor, and several transposable element bursts contributed to A-genome size expansion and speciation. The ethylene production pathway is shown to regulate fiber elongation. A tip-biased diffuse growth mode and several regulatory mechanisms, including plant hormones, transcription factors, and epigenetic modifications, are involved in fiber development.
Finally, the paper describes the involvement of the gossypol biosynthetic pathway in the manipulation of herbivorous insects, the role of GoPGF in gland formation, and host-induced gene silencing for pest and disease control. These new genes, modules, and pathways will accelerate the genetic improvement of cotton.
Link to the paper：
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-arplant-080720-113241
Rewritten by Shen Yutian
Edited by Zhang Yilin and Hu Sijia
