© Benaki Phytopathological Institute
Hellenic Plant Protection Journal
12:
39-60, 2019
DOI 10.2478/hppj-2019-0006
1
Benaki Phytopathological Institute, Department of
Phytopathology, Laboratory of Mycology, St. Delta 8,
GR-145 61 Kifisia, Attica, Greece.
2
Agricultural University of Athens, Department of Bi-
otechnology, Iera Odos 75, GR-118 55 Votanikos, Ath-
ens, Greece.
* Corresponding author:
REVIEW ARTICLE
Molecular advances on agricultural crop improvement to meet
current cultivating demands
T. Margaritopoulou
1,
* and D. Milioni
2
Abstract
Sunflower, maize and potato are among the world’s principal crops. In order to improve
various traits, these crops have been genetically engineered to a great extent. Even though molecu-
lar markers for simple traits such as, fertility, herbicide tolerance or specific pathogen resistance have
been successfully used in marker-assisted breeding programs for years, agronomical important com-
plex quantitative traits like yield, biotic and abiotic stress resistance and seed quality content are chal-
lenging and require whole genome approaches. Collections of genetic resources for these crops are
conserved worldwide and represent valuable resources to study complex traits. Nowadays techno-
logical advances and the availability of genome sequence have made novel approaches on the whole
genome level possible. Molecular breeding, including both transgenic approach and marker-assisted
breeding have facilitated the production of large amounts of markers for high density maps and al-
lowed genome-wide association studies and genomic selection in sunflower, maize and potato. Mark-
er-assisted selection related to hybrid performance has shown that genomic selection is a successful
approach to address complex quantitative traits and to facilitate speeding up breeding programs in
these crops in the future.
Additional keywords:
Crop improvement, agricultural biotechnology, marker assisted selection, improved ag-
ronomic traits
ing, are more genetically uniform than their
wild relatives (Fu, 2015). Given that plant ge-
netic diversity increases options for innova-
tive, plant-based solutions to major environ-
mental challenges such as water scarcity,
deforestation, energy and climate change,
molecular plant breeding can be a valuable
tool to meet these demands by rapid incor-
poration of important traits from wild rela-
tives into established crops and by shorten-
ing new crop domestication time (da Silva
Dias, 2015).
Nowadays affordable high throughput
DNAsequencing, coupledwithimprovedbio-
informatics and statistical analyses, is bring-
ing major advances in the field of molecular
plant breeding. Multidisciplinary breeding
programs on the world’s major crop plants
are able to investigate genome-wide varia-
tions in DNA sequences and link them to in-
herited highly complex traits which are con-
trolled by several genes, such as hybrid vigor
and flowering. Furthermore, there has been
Introduction
Agriculture is a human invention since more
than 10,000 years and is estimated to have
used more than 7,000 species to satisfy ba-
sic human needs (Esquinas-Alcázar, 2005).
The primitive crop cultivars, known as lan-
draces, were adapted to local growing con-
ditions and practices, and therefore re-
mained genetically diverse for traits such
as product qualities, stress tolerance, dis-
ease resistance, and yield stability. Today’s
agricultural commodities and modern vari-
eties derived from the genetic modification
of wild plants through thousands of years of
gradual selection, domestication and breed-
