INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR GENETIC ENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

1
GENOMICS OF COTTON BOLL AND FIBRE DEVELOPMENT
National Agricultural Innovation Project (Indian
Council of Agricultural Research)
INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR GENETIC ENGINEERING AND
BIOTECHNOLOGY ARUNA ASAF ALI MARG, NEW DELHI -
110067 Consortium Leader NATIONAL RESEARCH
CENTRE ON PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY PUSA CAMPUS, NEW
DELH I- 110012 UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL
SCIENCES DHARWAD - 580005
2
National Agricultural Innovation Project
(NAIP) of Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR) accords high priority to generation and
transfer of innovative agricultural technologies.
The overall objective of the NAIP is to
facilitate an accelerated and sustainable
transformation of the Indian agriculture, so that
it can support poverty alleviation and income
generation through collaborative development and
application of agricultural innovations by the
public organizations in partnership with farmers,
the private sector and other stakeholders. The
specific objective of the NAIP under the
component 4 is to build capacity to undertake
basic and strategic research in frontier areas of
agricultural sciences. Present project is funded
by the NAIP to develop cotton genotypes with good
quality fiber and insect resistance.
Cultivated Species
Cotton is the most important fibre crop in
India occupying 9 mha area which represents world
highest acreage of 34 mha under cotton. In four
of the cultivated cotton species, two are
A-genome diploid species (Gossypium arboretum L.
and G. herbaceum L.) and two are allotetraploid
AD-genome species (G. barbadense L. and G.
hirsutum L.). G. hirsutum L. is the most widely
cultivated species and accounts for more than 90
of the world cotton lint production.
Fibre morphogenesis can be divided into four
overlapping development stages Fibre initiation,
Primary cell wall synthesis (fibre expansion and
elongation), Secondary cell wall synthesis and
Maturation. The growth and development of cotton
plant is highly influenced by both biotic and
abiotic factors and directly influence the fibre
yield and quality.
Abiotic factors
Biotic factors
Insects
Drought
In the recent years, rapid development of
genomic tools and resources such as expression
profiling of elongating fiber cells has provided
clues to facilitate the understanding of cotton
production. This opens up opportunities to
isolate genes encoding fiber quality and
strength. Efforts to isolate these genes will
facilitate our ability to manipulate fibre
characters that the textile industry is looking
forward. Promoters that are highly active during
boll development will sustain the expression of
foreign proteins such as Bt toxins in the bolls
providing effective protection against Cotton
bollworm and Pink bollworm. Similarly,
boll-specific promoters will facilitate
hyper-expression of osmotolerant genes in
developing bolls thus imparting protection to the
physiological and biochemical processes involved
in fibre development.

• OBJECTIVES
• Identification of genes in the developing boll
  that are highly influenced under Bollworm attack
  and drought and nutritional stresses.
• Construction of EST database of Gossypium
  hirsutum from tissues derived from various stages
  of boll development.
• Assignment of functions to key genes involved in
  cotton fibre length and quality.
• Isolation and characterization of promoters for
  the genes expressed specifically in bolls and are
  strongly up regulated.

3
Studies on the influence of various factors
during the boll development can provide vital
information on the expression profile of various
genes and their role at molecular level that is
necessary for understanding the cotton fibre
formation and its development under various
adverse conditions. The project envisages
identification and isolation of genes and
promoters involved in fibre development and
characterization of their responses to biotic and
abiotic stress factors.

Towards this objective novel approaches will be
followed which include

• Global expression profiling of boll-specific ESTs
  under biotic and abiotic stress conditions.
• Identification of the corresponding gene
  sequences by bioinformatics tool
• PCR-based genome walking to isolate boll-specific
  and high expressing promoter sequences and
• validation using reporter gene expression in
  cotton.
• Development of cotton boll proteome database and
  identify proteins whose accumulation is
• influenced by abiotic and biotic factors using
  mass spectrometric analysis.
• Functional validation of candidate genes involved
  in the fibre development using expression and
• gene silencing approaches in cotton.

• The deliverables
• Genes and promoters that are specific to boll
  development.
• Genes associated with fiber development.
• Genes and promoters that are expressed in
  response to biotic and abiotic stress factors
  during boll development.
• Validated boll-specific promoters useful for the
  development of transgenic cotton
• Novel methods for the genomic analysis.

• Expected output and impact of the project
• The most important outcome of the project is a
  fundamental understanding of gene expression
  during flower, square, boll and fiber development
  in cotton. The knowledge thus gained will have
  profound implications in applied cotton breeding,
  transgenic development and biotechnology of
  cotton leading towards trait introduction and
  improvement.
• Expression of insecticidal proteins such as Bt
  toxins under the control of boll-specific
  promoter will sustain their expression thus
  providing effective control of cotton Bollworms.
• The project will generate fundamental knowledge
  about the gene function and the influence of
  biotic and abiotic factors on fiber development.

4
Execution of the programme will help identify
and isolate genes and respective promoters that
will lead to better fiber quality, improved
marketability and value to the farmer.
Well-trained human resource in the frontier
technologies such as functional genomics through
DNA microarrays, proteomics and
transcriptomics. The novel genes and promoters
identified will be protected in the form of
patents by the NAIP.
CONSORTIUM IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE
Name of the member University/ Institute Email Phone
Dr V Siva Reddy, CL Dr. M K Reddy, CCL Dr. S. Leelavathi, CCL ICGEB, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi-67 vsreddy_at_icgeb.res.in reddy_at_icgeb.res.in sadhul_at_icgeb.res.in 011-26741358
Dr P. Ananda Kumar, CCL NRCPB, IARI, New Delhi polumetla_at_hotmail.com 011-25848783
Dr I S Katageri, CCL Dr. H. M. Vamadevaiah, CCL UAS, Dharwad-580004, Karnataka ikatageri_at_yahoo.com 0836-2447874
CONSORTIUM ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Prof A. R. Reddy, Chairman-CAC,Vice-Chancellor,
Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa, A.P. (Expert on
functional genomics of crop plants) Prof Amit
Ghosh, Director, Indian Institute of Advanced
Research, Gandhinagar (Expert on Microbial
genetics and molecular biology of Vibrio
cholerae) Dr B. M. Khadi, Director, Central
Institute of Cotton Research, Nagpur (Expert on
cotton breeding and biotechnology)
Estimated total cost of the project Rs. 755.50
lakhs