Genome to phenome mapping and marker-assisted breeding in apples

要实现环境可持续农业的未来，实现安全可靠的粮食供应，就需要有可持续的育种方案，以应对不断演变的害虫和病原体、全球气候变化以及对替代生物燃料来源的需求。基因组学有望通过分子标记辅助育种和基因组选择显著加快具有理想性状的改良品种的选育。随着DNA测序的成本持续快速下降，我们正在进入一个基因分型和测序成本通常不是实现基因型到表型映射的限制性步骤的时代。相反，限制DNA序列数据用于作物改良的主要障碍是基因组和生物信息学工具的可用性，这些工具在各种农业系统中是用户友好和有用的，以及对物种表型的准确测量。我的研究计划旨在通过开发基因组和表型工具来克服这些障碍，这些工具可以用来减少培育需要较少化学投入的新品种所需的时间和金钱。 1000多个不同的苹果品种构成了我的研究计划的基础。 这一人群将广泛的基因型和表型，目的是揭示新的基因型-表型关系。 该计划不仅将为苹果生物学提供新的见解，而且将为未来的育种工作提供一个起点，旨在生产具有商业吸引力的品种，需要更少的化学投入。

A future of environmentally sustainable agriculture that leads to a safe and secure food supply requires sustained breeding programmes that respond to evolving pests and pathogens, global climate change and the demand for alternative biofuel sources. Genomics holds the promise to significantly accelerate the breeding of improved cultivars with desirable traits through marker-assisted breeding and genomic selection. As the costs of DNA sequencing continue to rapidly drop, we are entering an era where genotyping and sequencing costs are often not the limiting step for enabling genotype-to-phenotype mapping. Rather, the major barriers limiting the use of DNA sequence data for crop improvement are the availability of genomic and bioinformatic tools that are user-friendly and useful across a diverse range of agricultural systems, and accurate measures of species' phenomes. My research programme aims to overcome these barriers by developing genomic and phenomic tools that can be leveraged to reduce the amount of time and money required to breed novel cultivars that require less chemical input. A population of over 1000 diverse apple cultivars forms the basis of my research programme. This population will be extensively genotyped and phenotyped with the aim of uncovering novel genotype-phenotype relationships. Not only will this programme provide novel insights into apple biology, but it will provide a launching point for future breeding efforts aimed at producing cultivars with commercial appeal that require less chemical input.