Molecular marker-assisted breeding: A plant breeder’s review

Abstract

A plant breeder faces the challenge of how to more effectively and efficiently perform selection and accelerate the breeding progress to satisfy the requirements of changing markets for crop cultivars. Molecular marker-assisted breeding (MAB), the application of molecular biotechnologies (DNA markers) to practical breeding and selection, is a novel strategy and a powerful methodology for plant improvement. It has significant advantages compared with conventional breeding methods. Since the 1990s MAB has received increasingly attention and has been extensively used in different crop species. From a plant breeder’s point of view, this chapter addresses the general procedures, theoretical and practical considerations of MAB in plants, including marker-assisted selection (MAS), marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC), marker-assisted gene pyramiding (MAGP), marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) and genomewide selection (GWS). Applications of individual MAB methods to practical breeding as well as widely used DNA markers are briefly reviewed, and the challenges and perspectives of MAB are discussed. As a new technology, MAB is not a replacement for but a valued supplement to conventional breeding. Integration of MAB into conventional breeding programs represents an optimistic strategy for future crop improvement.