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Next-generation genetics in plants

Nature volume 456, pages 720–723 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Natural variation presents one of the fundamental challenges of modern biology. Soon, the genome sequences of thousands of individuals will be known for each of several species. But how does the genotypic variation that will be observed among these individuals translate into phenotypic variation? Plants are in many ways ideal for addressing this question, and resources that are unmatched, except in humans, have now been developed.

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Figure 1: GWA mapping is ineffective if there is strong genetic differentiation between subpopulations (that is, if there is structure in the population).
Figure 2: The performance of GWA mapping depends strongly on the genetic architecture of the trait.

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Acknowledgements

Studies of natural genetic variation are supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (M.N.), and by the German Research Foundation, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme, the Human Frontier Science Program and the Max Planck Society (D.W.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA.,

    Magnus Nordborg

  2. Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, 72076, Germany

    Detlef Weigel

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  1. Magnus Nordborg
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  2. Detlef Weigel
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Correspondence should be addressed to the authors (magnus@usc.edu; weigel@weigelworld.org).

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Nordborg, M., Weigel, D. Next-generation genetics in plants. Nature 456, 720–723 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07629

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