Dye absorption method for the evaluation of novel bioengineered cotton fibres

A spectrophotometric method based on the absorption of Acid Orange 7 dye was studied for the detection of differences between fibres from cotton lines designed to produce oligochitin in the fibre and their control lines. The Kjeldahl method is used to validate the proposed method. A few transgenic lines designed to produce oligochitin and their respective controls were screened with the methods to see whether the proposed method is capable of accurately detecting the differences in nitrogen levels. Also a broad range of dyes from different classes are investigated. Their ability to detect differences in reactivity is to be proven using cotton fibres treated with different concentrations of a cationic agent. Four dyes of different classes and structures which show most promising results are proposed to screen dyeability differences between the bioengineered cotton lines