A GENOME APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF THE COTTON FIBER AS A MODEL SYSTEM

Department of Agronomy and Range Science, One Shields Ave., University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8515

By its very nature, the cotton fiber offers an unparalleled system for the study of fundamental biological processes in plant growth and development. Conventional approaches over the years have revealed that fiber development is regulated by stage-specific changes in gene expression patterns. With entry into the era of genomics, we are taking a genomic approach to study the underlying genetic mechanisms that control fiber development from a global perspective using emerging high-throughput technology. Expression profiles obtained to date from high density filters (macroarrays) and cDNA microarrays indicate that the spatial and temporal regulation of vast regulatory networks and signaling cascades are tightly coordinated in a manner that reflect dynamic changes in the types of cellular activities taking place within the developing fiber. Fiber modeling will no doubt prove to be a valuable resource for designing experimental approaches to test basic premises in other model organisms, and contribute to genetic applications in the improvement of cotton germplasm as well. Research activities in functional genomics are coordinated with other groups of the Cotton Genome Center to map important fiber genes and to study the impact of polyploidy in the evolution of the fiber in today's elite cultivated species.