Relationship between gene differential expression of leaves in full opening flower stages of hybrids & their parents and heterosis in pest-resistant cotton.

cDNAs of leaves of 24 pest-resistant cotton (authorization) crosses and their parents in full opening flower stages were amplified and different bands were displayed by DDRT-PCR, with 45 primer combinations. The mean percentage of bands duplicated was 70.1%, which implied that there was a high proportion of pseudopositive fragments in the amplified cDNA. These pseudopositive bands can be reduced using duplicate PCR. Correlation analysis between differential gene expression and hybrid performance and heterosis showed that M4 (bands detected in one parent and F1) was positively correlated with all yield traits, and significantly correlated with boll number; M2 (bands observed in one parent but not in F1 and another parent) was negatively correlated with heterosis of boll number; and M3 (bands observed only in F1) was positively correlated with heterosis of lint yield. These results showed that genes that had dominant and specific expression in top leaves of full opening flower stages were beneficial to yield formation and heterosis occurrence.