Plant & Animal Genomes XIII Conference

January 15-19, 2005
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Mapping Drought-Stress Related Genes In Cotton

Hirut Kebede¹ , Paxton Payton³ , JR Quilantan² , Jing Wang² , Natalya Klueva² , Randy Allen² , Andrew Paterson ⁴ , Robert Wright¹

¹  Department of Plant and Soil Science, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX 79409

²  Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX 79409

³  USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Laboratory, Lubbock, TX 79423

⁴  Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory, University of Georgia, Athens Georgia 30602

Improved drought tolerance of crop plants is vital to the sustainability of agriculture. Merging gene expression data, genetic mapping information, and physiological data is a significant step towards understanding the genetics controlling the physiological responses that affect production and quality under adverse conditions. The principal aim of this collaborative project was to discover drought-stress response genes in cotton. We have identified a collection of putative drought-stress responsive candidate genes by in silico screening of 3593 ESTs, generated from drought-stressed and irrigated cotton boll libraries. A subset of these candidate stress response genes were evaluated for genome specificity and mapped onto the cotton genetic map. Several candidate genes co-localized with phenotypes (QTLs) known to be responsible for variation in drought-stress response. This study combines the use of genome-wide approach to identify and isolate key candidate genes to specific regions of the genome, with the full benefits of a rich history of phenotypic data accumulated in several studies.