Genomics-Assisted Breeding: Strategies, Advances and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

With the rapid increase in the world population, crop improvement has become the most effective way to boost global food security. Compared with conventional breeding approaches, marker-assisted selection (MAS) has greatly enhanced the efficiency of plant breeding and crop improvement, due to the switch from phenotype-based toward genotype-based selection. More recently, several novel genomics-assisted breeding (GAB) tools/approaches such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS), genomic selection (GS), de novo domestication, gene or genome editing, etc. have been extensively studied and achieved significant progress in plant science. However, their successful implementation in practical breeding for the improvement of complex traits such as yield and stress tolerance has rarely been explored. We expect that GAB approaches will be more extensively investigated and widely utilized in future plant breeding. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to help readers to understand the roles of GAB in crop improvement. It is dedicated to original research and review articles which cover recent progress in the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs), quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs), and functional markers associated with complex traits in agronomically important crops, and functional characterization of a causative gene. New tools and methodologies and their breeding applications involved in high-throughput phenotyping and genotyping, association and linkage mapping, GS and phenotype prediction, gene and genome editing, de novo domestication, genome design for future crops, artificially synthesized crops, and integrative GAB approaches are also of particular interest.

Prof. Dr. Kun Lu
Guest Editor

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