Genome to phenome mapping and marker-assisted breeding in apples

环境可持续农业的未来将带来安全可靠的粮食供应，这需要持续的育种计划，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。基因组学有望通过标记辅助育种和基因组选择显著加速具有理想性状的改良品种的育种。随着DNA测序成本的持续快速下降，我们正在进入一个时代，基因分型和测序成本通常不是实现基因型到表型图谱的限制步骤。相反，限制使用DNA序列数据进行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，这些工具对各种农业系统都是用户友好且有用的，以及物种现象的准确测量。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多种不同的苹果品种构成了我研究计划的基础。该人群将广泛进行基因分型和表型分型，目的是发现新的基因型-表型关系。这个项目不仅为苹果生物学提供了新的见解，而且还将为未来的育种工作提供一个起点，旨在生产出具有商业吸引力、需要较少化学投入的品种。

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.