scientificprotocols authored over 7 years ago
Authors: Mi Zhang, Qiwei Zeng, Lei Hou, Demou Li & Yan Pei
Cotton is the most important textile fiber crop in the world. With expect to improve cotton fiber yield, many studies have tried to increase fiber number per seed. Estimating mature fiber number exactly is becoming more necessary, because only about thirty percentages of differentiated fiber cells could develop to mature fibers. To date, there is no method for counting mature fibers, except some ones for early fiber cells. Here, we describe a fast and easy approach for counting mature fibers per seed. That would help us finding the change of fiber number during cotton improvement.
In this method, mature fiber number per cotton seed is determined according to the ratio of fiber weight to number. So, to sample representative fibers (with a normal length) is much important to get a precise result. Taking this method, we have counted the number of mature fibers from a cultivar of upland cotton, which is 12,318±462 fibers per seed. Three individual tests by different persons demonstrated that this protocol is easy to operate, and the result is reproducible. Moreover, it is suitable for lab use, because a small amount of cotton seeds is needed.
45% acetic acid: dilute acetic acid with deionized water to 45%.
The whole procedure can be accomplished within 24 hrs.
As shown in Figure 1, snippets, cut from a bundle of fibers with the length about 1~2mm, could be easily identifed one by one under microscopical observation.
Figure 1: Snippets separated in a dorp of 45% acetic acid
Spatiotemporal manipulation of auxin biosynthesis in cotton ovule epidermal cells enhances fiber yield and quality. Mi Zhang, Xuelian Zheng, Shuiqing Song, Qiwei Zeng, Lei Hou, Demou Li, Juan Zhao, Yuan Wei, Xianbi Li, Ming Luo, Yuehua Xiao, Xiaoying Luo, Jinfa Zhang, Chengbin Xiang, and Yan Pei. Nature Biotechnology 10/04/2011 doi:10.1038/nbt.1843
Mi Zhang, Qiwei Zeng, Lei Hou, Demou Li & Yan Pei, Biotechnology Research Center, Southwest University
Correspondence to: Yan Pei ([email protected])
Source: Protocol Exchange (2011) doi:10.1038/protex.2011.220. Originally published online 12 April 2011.