Molecular Markers Based Plant Breeding
Samriti Sharma *
Department of Biotechnology, Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landran, Mohali, India
Ankita Sharma
Department of Biotechnology, Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry Nauni, Solan 176051, India
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Marker assisted plant breeding achieved various plant breeding objectives in a cost effective and time consuming manner through molecular marker techniques or statistical and bioinformatics tools. Molecular markers indicate the differences in the nucleotide sequence of different organs or species. Apart from the application of molecular markers in linkage map construction, they are suitable for assessing genetic variations within cultivars and germplasm, in genome selection and fingerprinting studies. The most engaging fact of molecular markers is in Marker assisted selection (MAS). In comparison with traditional breeding, molecular markers have the efficiency to increase the effectiveness of breeding programmes. In this study, the applications of molecular markers in plant breeding studies are described.
Keywords: Plant breeding, molecular markers, marker assisted selection, linkage map and quantitative trait loci (QTLs)