Executive Summary : | Cottonseed is a crucial textile crop and food crop, providing high-quality protein for animal and human diets. It is rich in nutrients such as proteins, oil, sugars, cellulose, and nutrients. The production of cottonseed protein is widespread, serving the daily protein requirements of 600 million individuals. Cottonseed oil, with 70% unsaturated and 30% saturated fatty acid compositions, is widely used for edible purposes. India, China, and Pakistan are the top three consumers of cottonseed oil, accounting for 63% of world consumption. However, the presence of the toxic substance "gossypol" restricts the production of edible protein products from cottonseed. Gossypol produces food discoloration and is harmful to monogastric animals like humans. Several effective approaches have been established to get rid of gossypol content in cottonseeds, including developing commercial varieties with glandless traits. In the 1990s, numerous cotton varieties with low gossypol developed, but they were susceptible to insect and rodent injury due to losing gossypol protection. In 2019, Rathore's group developed a transgenic RNAi cotton line with extremely poor gossypol in cotton seeds, which was genetically stable and had no adverse effects on fiber quality or yield.
This study aims to develop a novel "Genome edited" cotton variety with gland cotton leaves and glandless seeds by interfering with a crucial gossypol synthesizing gene and pigmented gland forming genes CGP3 or GoPGF in the seeds. This variety can be directly used for conventional purposes such as oil and fiber-yielding crops without any physical or chemical treatment. |