Abstract
BackgroundFood security is an issue that has come under renewed scrutiny amidst concerns that substantial yield increases in cereal crops are required to feed the world’s booming population. Wheat is of fundamental importance in this regard being one of the three most important crops for both human consumption and livestock feed; however, increase in crop yields have not kept pace with the demands of a growing world population. In order to address this issue, plant breeders require new molecular tools to help them identify genes for important agronomic traits that can be introduced into elite varieties. Studies of the genome using next-generation sequencing enable the identification of molecular markers such as single nucleotide polymorphisms that may be used by breeders to identify and follow genes when breeding new varieties. The development and application of next-generation sequencing technologies has made the characterisation of SNP markers in wheat relatively cheap and straightforward. There is a growing need for the widespread dissemination of this information to plant breeders.DescriptionCerealsDB is an online resource containing a range of genomic datasets for wheat (Triticum aestivum) that will assist plant breeders and scientists to select the most appropriate markers for marker assisted selection. CerealsDB includes a database which currently contains in excess of 100,000 putative varietal SNPs, of which several thousand have been experimentally validated. In addition, CerealsDB contains databases for DArT markers and EST sequences, and links to a draft genome sequence for the wheat variety Chinese Spring.ConclusionCerealsDB is an open access website that is rapidly becoming an invaluable resource within the wheat research and plant breeding communities.
Highlights
Food security is an issue that has come under renewed scrutiny amidst concerns that substantial yield increases in cereal crops are required to feed the world’s booming population
We have greatly extended the functionality of CerealsDB, which was originally constructed to store a dataset of 26,382 Expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences [11], to include a number of searchable online databases relating to wheat genomics
Web interface and user querying capabilities The CerealsDB website contains a range of datasets that are accessible via the menu bar and include the KASPar Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) database, a Basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) search page to query the Wheat genomic sequence, a download page for the draft wheat genome, a wheat EST database, a search page for wheat diversity array technology (DArT) data and a page describing the mapping of DArT markers using wheat deletion lines
Summary
Food security is an issue that has come under renewed scrutiny amidst concerns that substantial yield increases in cereal crops are required to feed the world’s booming population. Wheat is of fundamental importance in this regard being one of the three most important crops for both human consumption and livestock feed; increase in crop yields have not kept pace with the demands of a growing world population. In order to address this issue, plant breeders require new molecular tools to help them identify genes for important agronomic traits that can be introduced into elite varieties. The relative increase in wheat yields has slowed towards the end of the twentieth century [5] To help address this need plant breeders and scientists must embrace the modern molecular biological technologies that allow them a more targeted approach to plant improvement
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