When genomics gets its crystal ball out

Saving years in terms of varietal breeding: the dream of biotechnology is now within reach, thanks to pan-genomic breeding . This new approach is now capable of generating large numbers of molecular markers at an increasingly low cost .
The initial research was done on animals. And recent analyses and trials look very promising: the method is twice as quick and cuts costs by more than 90%. A revolution ! In plants, the approach is still limited to model species at the forefront of genetic improvement operations, and above all based on scenarios generated by simulation. It is largely undeveloped from an experimental point of view as regards actual populations being used in improvement operations.

CIRAD has chosen this line of research for the Sepang project , which was officially launched in July 2011. The project covers a wide range of tropical plant species (eucalyptus, oil palm, rice, coffee and cocoa) with differing biological characteristics (annuals, perennials, cross-pollinated, self-fertilizing, etc). The improvement operations have several objectives - pest resistance, biomass, grain yield, quality, etc - and concern various types of improvement programmes - recurrent selection, reciprocal recurrent selection to produce hybrids, etc.

They will consist in:

• developing new models or improving existing statistical models;
• developing simulation tools to predict the impact of the different methods over several generations of improvement, according to various scenarios;
• optimizing marker-assisted breeding by identifying the most relevant parameters in the improvement process (methods, markers, population size, etc);
• assessing and comparing the performance of several methods using an experimental approach (pan-genomic breeding, phenotype breeding, QTL pyramids, genetic association, etc).

The project pools the expertise of some thirty researchers from CIRAD research units and the same again from its partners in the Republic of Congo (CRDPI), Indonesia (Socfindo), Colombia (CIAT), Mexico (INIFAP, LAGEBIO/CINVESTA, AMSA), Réunion (eRcane) and Ivory Coast (CNRA).

It will run for three years , and implementation will centre on experience-sharing workshops and joint work on a methodological level. The first workshop is to be held in Montpellier from 28 November to 2 December 2011, and will concern mixed plant improvement models.

Literature

Denis M., Bouvet J.-M., 2011. Genomic selection in tree breeding: testing accuracy of prediction models including dominance effect. IUFRO Tree Biotechnology Conference 2011 "From genomes do integration and delivery" 26 June - 02 July Arraial D´Ajuda - Bahia – Brazil. BMC proceeding, 5 (Suppl 7) on September 13, 2011.

Aaron J. Lorenz, Shiaoman Chao, Franco G. Asoro, Elliot L. Heffner, Takeshi Hayashi, Hiroyoshi Iwata, Kevin P. Smith, Mark E. Sorrells, and Jean-Luc Jannink., 2011. Genomic Selection in Plant Breeding: Knowledge and Prospects. Advances in Agronomy, Vol. 110, 2011. Elsevier Inc.