| Summary: | Arginine-rich Tandem Zinc Finger (RR-TZF) proteins make up a plant-specific superfamily that participates in plant development, while their roles in cotton fiber development remain to be explored. In this study, we identified an RR-TZF protein-coding gene, <i>GhTZF2</i>, containing two CCCH domains (C-X<sub>7</sub>-C-X<sub>5</sub>-C-X<sub>3</sub>-H-X<sub>16</sub>-C-X<sub>5</sub>-C-X<sub>4</sub>-C-X<sub>3</sub>-H) and one RR domain at the N-terminus of the two CCCH domains, by comparing the differences of chromatin H3K4me3 modifications between wild-type upland cotton (WT) and the <i>fuzzless-lintless</i> mutant (<i>fl</i>) ovules. <i>GhTZF2</i> was highly expressed in ovule cells near anthesis, and multiple experiments revealed that <i>GhTZF2</i> could interact directly with GhMORF8. Homozygotic <i>GhTZF2</i>-knockout cotton lines produced significantly shorter fibers with thinner cell walls. Additionally, comparative transcriptome analysis confirmed that many differentially expressed transcripts contain adenine- and uridine-rich (AU-rich) elements (AREs) in their 3’ untranslated regions (UTR). Together, this study indicated that <i>GhTZF2</i> may regulate cotton fiber cell development through interacting with GhMORF8, or may be involved in mRNA turnover.
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