Parallel up-regulation of the profilin gene family following independent domestication of diploid and allopolyploid cotton (Gossypium).

ABSTRACT: Cotton is remarkable among our major crops in that four species were independently domesticated, two allopolyploids and two diploids. In each case thousands of years of human selection transformed sparsely flowering, perennial shrubs into highly productive crops with seeds bearing the vastly elongated and abundant single-celled hairs that comprise modern cotton fiber. The genetic underpinnings of these transformations are largely unknown, but comparative gene expression profiling experiments have demonstrated up-regulation of profilin accompanying domestication in all three species for which wild forms are known. Profilins are actin monomer binding proteins that are important in cytoskeletal dynamics and in cotton fiber elongation. We show that Gossypium diploids contain six profilin genes

SUBMITTER: Bao Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3248529 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature