Overview

In this proposal scientists with complementary interests detail a research plan that promises insights of general scientific significance and material resources that will be central to cotton crop improvement. Our understanding of Gossypium and its genome has not only been deepened by, but has been dependent upon the fortuitous marriage of phylogenetic analysis with genomic investigations. We continue this relationship here, using an evolutionary approach to address fundamental questions about morphological evolution, the comparative genetic basis of apparent convergence during repeated domestication of divergent wild progenitors, modes and mechanisms responsible for genome size variation, and the functional and agronomic significance of polyploidy. The organizing structure for all of these efforts is a mere single cell, but one that truly is remarkable and economically vital.

This project includes six major components:

1. Development of an enriched public EST resource and unigene set
2. Determining the genetic basis of cotton fiber transformations that accompanied speciation, domestication, and polyploidization
3. Advancing toward assembly of the information and tools needed for association mapping in cotton, and diversity analysis of specific mutations or genomic regions
4. Building a BAC-based resource for gene mapping and comparative evolutionary genomics
5. Sequencing BAC-sized orthologous regions from closely related genomes that vary two-fold or more in size
6. Advancing and enhancing Web-accessible cotton informatic resources