Expression Patterns Divergence of Reciprocal F1 Hybrids Between Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense Reveals Overdominance Mediating Interspecific Biomass Heterosis

Tengyu Li; Fuqiu Wang; Muhammad Yasir; Kui Li; Yuan Qin; Jing Zheng; Kun Luo; Shouhong Zhu; Hua Zhang; Yurong Jiang; Yongshan Zhang; Junkang Rong

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.892805

Expression Patterns Divergence of Reciprocal F₁ Hybrids Between Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense Reveals Overdominance Mediating Interspecific Biomass Heterosis

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Jul 1:13:892805. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.892805. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Tengyu Li^{1

2

3}, Fuqiu Wang³, Muhammad Yasir¹, Kui Li⁴, Yuan Qin³, Jing Zheng¹, Kun Luo¹, Shouhong Zhu², Hua Zhang¹, Yurong Jiang¹, Yongshan Zhang², Junkang Rong¹

Affiliations

¹ The Key Laboratory for Quality Improvement of Agricultural Products of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Hangzhou, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Cotton Biology, Institute of Cotton Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Anyang, China.
³ National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
⁴ Institute of Food and Nutrition Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Hybrid breeding has provided an impetus to the process and achievement of a higher yield and quality of crops. Interspecific hybridization is critical for resolving parental genetic diversity bottleneck problems. The reciprocal interspecific hybrids and their parents (Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense) have been applied in this study to elucidate the transcription regulatory mechanism of early biomass heterosis. Phenotypically, the seed biomass, plant height over parent heterosis, leaf area over parent heterosis, and fresh and dry biomass were found to be significantly higher in hybrids than in parents. Analysis of leaf areas revealed that the one-leaf stage exhibits the most significant performance in initial vegetative growth vigor and larger leaves in hybrids, increasing the synthesis of photosynthesis compounds and enhancing photosynthesis compound synthesis. Comparative transcriptome analysis showed that transgressive down-regulation (TDR) is the main gene expression pattern in the hybrids (G. hirsutum × G. barbadense, HB), and it was found that the genes of photosystem I and Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-binding may promote early growth vigor. Transgressive up-regulation (TUR) is the major primary gene expression pattern in the hybrids (G. barbadense × G. hirsutum, BH), and photosystem II-related genes mediated the performance of early biomass heterosis. The above results demonstrated that overdominance mediates biomass heterosis in interspecific hybrid cotton and the supervisory mechanism divergence of hybrids with different females. Photosynthesis and other metabolic process are jointly involved in controlling early biomass heterosis in interspecific hybrid cotton. The expression pattern data of transcriptome sequencing were supported using the qRT-PCR analysis. Our findings could be useful in theoretical and practical studies of early interspecific biomass heterosis, and the results provide potential resources for the theoretical and applied research on early interspecific biomass heterosis.

Keywords: biomass vigor; cotton; interspecific hybrid; overdominant; transcriptome analysis.