title: A new synthetic allotetraploid (A1A1G2G2) between Gossypium herbaceum and G. australe: bridging for simultaneously transferring favorable genes from these two diploid species into upland cotton.
abstract: Gossypium herbaceum, a cultivated diploid cotton species (2n = 2x = 26, A1A1), has favorable traits such as excellent drought tolerance and resistance to sucking insects and leaf curl virus. G. australe, a wild diploid cotton species (2n = 2x = 26, G2G2), possesses numerous economically valuable characteristics such as delayed pigment gland morphogenesis (which is conducive to the production of seeds with very low levels of gossypol as a potential food source for humans and animals) and resistance to insects, wilt diseases and abiotic stress. Creating synthetic allotetraploid cotton from these two species would lay the foundation for simultaneously transferring favorable genes into cultivated tetraploid cotton. Here, we crossed G. herbaceum (as the maternal parent) with G. australe to produce an F1 interspecific hybrid and doubled its chromosome complement with colchicine, successfully generating a synthetic tetraploid. The obtained tetraploid was confirmed by morphology, cytology and molecular markers and then self-pollinated. The S1 seedlings derived from this tetraploid gradually became flavescent after emergence of the fifth true leaf, but they were rescued by grafting and produced S2 seeds. The rescued S1 plants were partially fertile due to the existence of univalents at Metaphase I of meiosis, leading to the formation of unbalanced, nonviable gametes lacking complete sets of chromosomes. The S2 plants grew well and no flavescence was observed, implying that interspecific incompatibility, to some extent, had been alleviated in the S2 generation. The synthetic allotetraploid will be quite useful for polyploidy evolutionary studies and as a bridge for transferring favorable genes from these two diploid species into Upland cotton through hybridization.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Quan
authors: Q
authors: Liu
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Yu
authors: Y
authors: Chen
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Yu
authors: Y
authors: Chen
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Yingying
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Jinjin
authors: J
authors: Chen
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Tianzhen
authors: T
authors: Zhang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement, MOE Hybrid Cotton R&D Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
authors: Baoliang
authors: B
authors: Zhou
mesh_terms: D017343:Genes, Plant; D003368:Gossypium / Q000235:genetics; D011123:Polyploidy