Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture say they have developed a new breed of cotton that is flame resistant so that clothing made from it will be flame resistant in the same way that polyester fibers are. This could be a real game changer for everything from clothing to sheets and towels. The cotton was developed using transgressive segregation in multi-parent populations facilitates and will have the added advantage of ending the use of unhealthy chemical fire retardants.
According to the research study published in the journal PLoS ONE, textiles made from cotton fibers are flammable and thus often include flame retardant additives for consumer safety. Transgressive segregation in multi-parent populations facilitates new combinations of alleles of genes and can result in traits that are superior to those of any of the parents
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Think about it: How often do you hear about a fire in someone’s house, or a factory, that got out of control because of all of the inflammable items kept in the average home. Or people suffering from burns caused because their clothing burned in a fire? Now, a small fire won’t spread if all cotton made items in the future come from this new flame retardant fiber.
Nowadays, the substances used to prevent fires from spreading are called PFAs.
Northwestern University explains that PFAS, a group of manufactured chemicals commonly used since the 1940s, are called “forever chemicals” for a reason. Bacteria can’t eat them; fire can’t incinerate them; and water can’t dilute them. And, if these toxic chemicals are buried, they leach into surrounding soil, becoming a persistent problem for generations to come.
The Department of Agriculture explained that its scientists used Multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) in the development of the new breed of cotton. They explained that populations are valuable to genetic researchers and breeders and have been developed in many model and commercial crops, including cotton. MAGIC populations create an opportunity for beneficial alleles from the multiple parents to combine in novel ways, resulting in phenotypes that are far superior to any of the parents. Transgressive segregation has been observed in simpler, bi-parental populations, but MAGIC populations intrinsically present even greater opportunities.
The scientists explained that breeding programs that combine multiple parents can create new combinations of variants of genes that results in traits that are superior to those of any of the parents. All eleven MAGIC parents, like other conventional white fiber cotton cultivars, produce flammable fabrics. The new cotton lines generated textiles with the novel characteristic of inherent flame resistance (FR). When exposed to open flame by standard flammability testing procedures, textiles made from these lines self-extinguished.
