Genomic Tools in Groundnut Breeding Program: Status and Perspectives.

P Janila,A L Rathnakumar,Surendra S Manohar,Babu N Motagi,Rajeev K Varshney,Manish K Pandey,Boshou Liao,Murali T Variath,T Radhakrishnan,Patrick Okori,Haile Desmae

doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.00289

Abstract

Groundnut, a nutrient-rich food legume, is cultivated world over. It is valued for its good quality cooking oil, energy and protein rich food, and nutrient-rich fodder. Globally, groundnut improvement programs have developed varieties to meet the preferences of farmers, traders, processors, and consumers. Enhanced yield, tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses and quality parameters have been the target traits. Spurt in genetic information of groundnut was facilitated by development of molecular markers, genetic, and physical maps, generation of expressed sequence tags (EST), discovery of genes, and identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for some important biotic and abiotic stresses and quality traits. The first groundnut variety developed using marker assisted breeding (MAB) was registered in 2003. Since then, USA, China, Japan, and India have begun to use genomic tools in routine groundnut improvement programs. Introgression lines that combine foliar fungal disease resistance and early maturity were developed using MAB. Establishment of marker-trait associations (MTA) paved way to integrate genomic tools in groundnut breeding for accelerated genetic gain. Genomic Selection (GS) tools are employed to improve drought tolerance and pod yield, governed by several minor effect QTLs. Draft genome sequence and low cost genotyping tools such as genotyping by sequencing (GBS) are expected to accelerate use of genomic tools to enhance genetic gains for target traits in groundnut.

Highlights

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) or peanut, an important oilseed and food legume crop, is cultivated in 25.44 million ha world over with a total production of 45.22 million tons during 2013 (Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations, 2014)
Molecular markers enable tapping of desirable alleles from wild species without the burden of linkage disequilibrium
The development of molecular markers liked to target traits is a key step in integrating genomics with groundnut breeding

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) or peanut, an important oilseed and food legume crop, is cultivated in 25.44 million ha world over with a total production of 45.22 million tons during 2013 (Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations, 2014). In Asia, with change in trend toward food uses, quality parameters to suit the food, and industry needs have emerged as important target traits in several countries including India and China. Groundnut based food products are widely used in feeding programs to treat malnutrition and improving nutritional quality traits is gaining importance. Wide hybridization techniques were used to tap the potential of wild species, for disease resistance, while mutation breeding played an important role for release of several groundnut varieties in India and China. By 2012, the national programs in India have released 194 improved groundnut varieties for cultivation in the country following the conventional breeding methods (Rathnakumar et al, 2013).

SUMMARY

Findings

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