Recently, a paper entitled “Fine mapping and candidate gene analysis of qFL-A12-5: a fiber length-related QTL introgressed from Gossypium barbadense into Gossypium hirsutum” has been published byTheoretical and Applied Genetics. In the paper, Institute of Cotton Research (CCRI) researchers report fine mapping and candidate gene analysis of qFL-A12-5, and discover a fiber length-related gene: GhTPR. Findings provide genetic resources for the directional improvement of cotton fiber quality.

Cotton fiber length is an important index affecting cotton fiber quality. Isolating and identifying its key genes and revealing the molecular mechanism of fiber elongation can provide excellent genetic resources for cultivating high-quality and high-yield cotton. In this study, the separated population of Gossypium. Barbadene-G. hirsutumchromosome segment substitution line was constructed, and the major quantitative trait loci related to fiber length were fine mapped by high-density genetic map, and the key candidate gene GhTPR. Overexpressed GhTPR in Arabidopsis thaliana, which could significantly increase root length, indicating that the gene may be involved in the regulation of cotton fiber elongation. The results laid a theoretical foundation for further analysis of the genetic mechanism of cotton fiber length development.

This study was funded by the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China (32272188, 32070560), the Natural ScienceFoundation of Henan Province (202300410549), China AgricultureResearch System of MOF and MARA, Hainan Yazhou Bay Seed Lab(B21HJ0210), the National Agricultural Science and Technology InnovationProject for CAAS (CAAS-ASTIP-2016-ICR), the Xinjiang Productionand Construction Corps Innovation Program for Science andTechnology Talents (2020CB005). Ph.D. student Xianghui Xiao and Prof. Youlu Yuan are the first author and corresponding author, respectively.