Rediscovery of haploid breeding in the genomics era

Abstract

Advances in DNA sequencing technologies have contributed to revolutionary understanding of many fundamental biological processes. With unprecedented cost-effective and high-throughput sequencing, a single laboratory can afford to de novo sequence the whole genome for species of interest. In addition, population genetic studies have been remarkably accelerated by numerous molecular markers identified from unbiased genome-wide sequences of population samples. As sequencing technologies have evolved very rapidly, acquiring appropriate individual plants or populations is a major bottleneck in plant research considering the complex nature of plant genome, such as heterozygosity, repetitiveness, and polyploidy. This challenge could be overcome by the old but effective method known as haploid induction. Haploid plants containing half of their sporophytic chromosomes can be rapidly generated mainly by culturing gametophytic cells such as ovules or pollens. Subsequent chromosome doubling in haploid plants can generate stable doubled haploid (DH) with perfect homozygosity. Here, classical methodology to generate and identify haploid plants or DH are summarized. In addition, haploid induction by epigenetic regulation of centromeric histone is explained. Furthermore, the utilization of haploid plant in the genomics era is discussed in the aspect of genome sequencing project and population genetic studies.