β-tubulin is the basic structural unit of cotton fiber, regulates fiber cell morphogenesis, and plays a vital role in fiber development. But there is less understood how β-tubulin gene influenced the distinct characteristic of fiber quality traits in cotton. In this study, members of the β-tubulin gene family were identified in cotton, their expression profiles were analyzed, and role of β-tubulin genes were explored for fiber quality.

BLAST method was used to identify members of the β-tubulin gene family in the genomes of four cotton species. ProtParam tool was utilized to analyze physicochemical properties, MEGA7.0 to construct phylogenetic tree, Mapchart2.2 to draw chromosomal localization map, MEME to analyze conserved motif, and PlantCARE to analyze promoter cis-acting elements. Expression levels of β-tubulin genes were characterized by using transcriptome data from 39 studies on fiber development. Spearman correlation analysis was used to identify candidate genes for fiber quality traits.

Importantly, 36, 37, 19 and 18 β-tubulin genes were identified in the genomes of Gossypium hirsutum (AD₁), Gossypium barbadense (AD₂), Gossypium arboretum (A₂) and Gossypium raimondii (D₅), respectively. The number of β-tubulin genes in tetraploid cotton species is almost double than that of diploid cotton species. Phylogenetic analysis classified these genes into 5 main clusters. Phylogenetic and collinearity analysis revealed that β-tubulin genes in Gossypium barbadense is closely related to Gossypium arboretum and Gossypium raimondii as compared to Gossypium hirsutum. Furthermore, all genes have typical conservative domains with Tubulin and Tubulin-C. The genes physicochemical properties showed amino acids range from 421 to 508 with isoelectric point of 4.68 to 5.09. The analysis of promoter cis-acting elements identified growth responsive, hormone responsive, and stress responsive elements which showed β-tubulin mediates various mechanisms of cell growth regulation. Interestingly, cluster analysis on 36 β-tubulin gene expression profiles showed 42% genes in cluster П had dominant expression in fiber. In particular, 1, 6, and 11 β-tubulin genes exhibited significant correlation with fiber micronaire value, fiber strength, and fiber length, respectively. Four genes were found to influence fiber length and fiber strength traits simultaneously.

A total of 110 β-tubulin gene family members were identified in the four cotton species. Their physicochemical properties and sequences of amino acids were highly conserved and the promoter sequence had diverse regulatory elements. This study characterized the expression profiles as well as molecular function of β-tubulin gene family in cotton fiber. Further discovered the potential candidate genes that probably regulate fiber quality traits in cotton. Our results may have great potential for cotton fiber quality improvement by genetic engineering.