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Genebank genomics bridges the gap between the conservation of crop diversity and plant breeding

Nature Genetics volume 51, pages 1076–1081 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Genebanks have the long-term mission of preserving plant genetic resources as an agricultural legacy for future crop improvement. Operating procedures for seed storage and plant propagation have been in place for decades, but there is a lack of effective means for the discovery and transfer of beneficial alleles from landraces and wild relatives into modern varieties. Here, we review the prospects of using molecular passport data derived from genomic sequence information as a universal monitoring tool at the single-plant level within and between genebanks. Together with recent advances in breeding methodologies, the transformation of genebanks into bio-digital resource centers will facilitate the selection of useful genetic variation and its use in breeding programs, thus providing easy access to past crop diversity. We propose linking catalogs of natural genetic variation and enquiries into biological mechanisms of plant performance as a long-term joint research goal of genebanks, plant geneticists and breeders.

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Fig. 1: Genebank genomics as a tool for collection management.
Fig. 2: Identification of duplicates is complicated by heterogeneity within accessions.
Fig. 3: Selection of the most promising genotypes for pre-breeding.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) to N.S., J.C.R., U.S. and M.M. (FKZ 031B0190; ‘SHAPE’; FKZ 031B0184 ‘Genebank 2.0’; FKZ 031A536A ‘de.NBI’) and a grant from the Leibniz Association to N.S., A.G., U.S., J.C.R. and M.M. (SAW-2015-IPK-1 ‘BRIDGE’). We thank M. Oppermann for tracing the origin of the Ethiopian accessions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) Gatersleben, Seeland, Germany

    Martin Mascher, Mona Schreiber, Uwe Scholz, Andreas Graner, Jochen C. Reif & Nils Stein

  2. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Martin Mascher

  3. Department of Crop Sciences, Center for Integrated Breeding Research (CiBreed), Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

    Nils Stein

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  1. Martin Mascher
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The concept of this work was developed in discussions among N.S., A.G., J.C.R., U.S., M.S. and M.M. M.M. and J.C.R. wrote the paper, and all co-authors provided input. M.S. designed figures.

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Correspondence to Martin Mascher or Nils Stein.

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Mascher, M., Schreiber, M., Scholz, U. et al. Genebank genomics bridges the gap between the conservation of crop diversity and plant breeding. Nat Genet 51, 1076–1081 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0443-6

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