Diversidade genética e expressão gênica em fibras de algodão colorido

Abstract

The demand for colored cotton fibers has grown internationally, especially motivated by ecological appeal that management provides. In Brazil, especially in the Northeast, agricultural niches are concentrated in small areas of family-based farmers who adopt both the conventional management as the organic, generating employment and income. The cotton breeding program of Embrapa Cotton has made efforts in developing new varieties of colored fibers in order to contribute to the regional agribusiness growth, nowadays with five cultivars, with fibers of colors ranging from green to various shades of brown. The challenge for researchers, however, is to generate varieties with new shades that can contribute to move the competitive market of the textile industry, especially the natural and dyes free. To advance in this segment, it is essential to understand the molecular basis of the metabolites involved in the synthesis of the color of the fibers so that we can establish strategies for genetic improvement, both by conventional means such as by genetic engineering. It is known that flavonoids are secondary metabolites which confers color to fibers and that depending on the route of biosynthesis, various color tones can be synthesized by events cascade. Being a component of biochemical nature, it is estimated that the identification of genotypes holders of biosynthesized by associated molecular markers, directly or not, to flavonoids. This strategy can configure a useful tool to identify genotypes colored fibers, helping to reduce the time the selection procedures that take between 120 to 150 days for the character can be phenotyped. Seeking to generate information that may help with the colored cotton fiber improvement aimed this work a study of genetic and molecular approaches in colorful cotton accesses, based on analysis of divergence and molecular expression, focusing on fiber specific genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis. For analysis of genetic diversity, twelve genotypes were phenotyped by ISSR-PCR, using 12 commercial oligonucleotides. The methods of Tocher, UPGMA and 2D Projection were adopted for cluster analysis based on the standard of 50 polymorphic bands. In light of the results, proceeded to the analysis of transcripts expression, using the genes PP2A1, C4H, DFR, ANR and ANS in cDNAs fibers collected at 8, 10 and 18 DPA (after anthesis days) from BRS Rubi, BRS Topázio, BRS 200 and V3 access. In the cluster analysis by UPGMA, there was the formation of six groups being groups B, D and E only those clustered colored materials. The results of the expression through semiquantitative RT-PCR, the amplicons were observed of approximately 200, 290, 1100, 1024 and 1067 bp for PP2A1, C4H, DFR, ANS and ANR, respectively, as expected. We observed increased expression of genes C4H, DFR and ANR in brown color genotypes, suggesting that these genes may be involved in flavonoid biosynthesis brown fibers. The results obtained in this study can be applied in the cotton breeding program aimed at obtaining varieties with new colors or new shades.