Crop genetics research in Asia: improving food security and nutrition

Abstract

Breakthroughs in genomics research in recent decades have fundamentally changed the landscape of crop science at a number of fronts: (1) High-quality reference genome sequences have become available for most of the crops which have provided the foundation for understanding the genome and for functional genomic studies. (2) Large numbers of genes have been identified and functionally characterized for many important agronomic traits, which have greatly enhanced the understanding of the regulatory mechanisms and the underlying biological processes for the making of the traits. (3) Large-scale resequencing of the diverse germplasms and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have provided assessment about the extent of genome diversity, the genetic architecture, and association between the phenotype and DNA sequence polymorphisms in many crop species. (4) Systems of breeding technologies based on the advance in genomic studies, or genomic breeding, have now been developed including novel goals in response to the evolving demands of the consumers, upgraded definitions of traits to be improved, techniques for whole genome selection, and varietal designs for the implementation.