Genomics and Molecular markers for crop improvement

Rajesh Singh1, A Selvi2, RK Singh3

                    1Genetics and Plant Breeding, IAS, BHU, Varanasi-221005

                    2Division of Biotech., Sugarcane Breeding Coimbatore

                    3Visiting Scientist, Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory, 111 River Bend Road, University of Georgia, Athens, GA (USA)-30603

                   Received: 23 February 2015 Revised Accepted: 28 April 2015

     ABSTRACT

Since the development of first molecular markers in 1980, a diverse array of molecular marker technologies have come into being revolutionizing conventional plant breeding efforts for crop improvement. Significant progress has been made in crop improvement through these classical markers or conventional random molecular markers (RDMs). Still, the biological function of most of the markers is unknown. Besides throwing light on organization, conservation and evolution of plant genomes, these markers have also aided geneticists and plant breeders to map QTLs for the traits of economic importance and to identify genes. Further advancements in genomics with high throughput sequencing methods and bioinformatics aided in the characterization of these genes and to date sequences of several genes are available in databases. The markers derived from the genes or ESTs are commonly called as functional markers or genic molecular markers (GMM). The availability of technologies for precise manipulation of these genes and their deployment is helping plant breeders in a way as never before for evolving better crop varieties. The following write-up focuses on the advancement of genomic tools and approaches that are available, strategies for tagging genes, candidate genes for traits of interest, and their applications for improving crop plants.

Key Words: Functional markers, Gene based markers, Random markers