Differentially Expressed Genes in Drought Stressed Cotton.

Drought is one of the most challenging agricultural issues limiting sustainable crop production. Many efforts have been incorporated using genetic and genomic approaches to identify valuable molecular resources. Cotton, the world's primary fiber crop, provides major economic value to farmers and industries over the world and is mostly grown in rainfed agricultural areas. In spite of its economic importance, study on drought-resistant cotton is limited. In this study, we aimed to identify a global set of transcript fragments that are differentially expressed in response to sub-optimal soil water supply during the flowering period of field-grown cotton plants. Because the EST libraries available in cotton do not sufficiently include drought induced genes and genes preferentially expressed in roots, we used cDNA-AFLP to detect genes differentially expressed in roots and leaves. Three biological and three technical replicates were used to verify the reliability of expression patterns between well-watered and drought-stressed cotton. Preliminary data suggests that differentially expressed TDFs (Transcript Derived Fragments) are recovered reliably in leaf and root tissues with consistent expression patterns in separate reactions. Data obtained from this experiment will provide a suite of genes involved in the plant's response to drought.