TY - JOUR T1 - Modifications to a <em>LATE MERISTEM IDENTITY-1</em> gene are responsible for the major leaf shapes of Upland cotton (<em>Gossypium hirsutum</em> L.) JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/062612 SP - 062612 AU - Ryan Andres AU - Viktoriya Coneva AU - Margaret H. Frank AU - John R. Tuttle AU - Sang-Won Han AU - Luis Fernando Samayoa AU - Baljinder Kaur AU - Linglong Zhu AU - Hui Fang AU - Daryl Bowman AU - Marcela Rojas-Pierce AU - Candace H. Haigler AU - Don C. Jones AU - James B. Holland AU - Daniel H. Chitwood AU - Vasu Kuraparthy Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/07/07/062612.abstract N2 - Manipulation of cotton canopy architecture offers the potential to maximize yield while minimizing inputs. Here we show that the major leaf shapes of cotton at the L-D1 locus are controlled by a Late Meristem Identity1-D1b (GhLMI1-D1b) gene which encodes a HD-Zip transcription factor. Okra leaf GhLMI1-D1b has a 133-bp tandem duplication in the promoter, correlated with elevated expression, while an 8-bp deletion in the third exon of normal leaf GhLMI1-D1b causes a frame-shifted and truncated coding sequence. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) of GhLMI1-D1b in an okra variety was sufficient to induce normal leaf formation. An intermediate leaf shape allele, sub-okra, lacks both the promoter duplication and the exonic deletion. Our results indicate that sub-okra is the ancestral leaf shape of tetraploid cotton and normal is a derived mutant allele that came to predominate and define the leaf shape of cultivated cotton. ER -