Genomic and Bioinformatic Resources for Next Generation Breeding Approaches Towards Enhanced Stress Tolerance in Cereals.

Abstract

Breeding stress-resilient cereals is a prerequisite to sustaining the food and nutritional security in the era of climate change. The number of cereal genome sequences and the number of genomic resources are growing with the advent of a technological revolution in genomics and molecular biology. These genomic innovations resulted in advanced next-generation cereal breeding methods to improve the genetic gain per unit time. Many contemporary next-generation breeding methods necessitate the genetic and genomic resources for target trait improvement. Therefore, the cereal genetic resources are a substantial opportunity for stress-resilient cereal breeding, preservation, and maintenance of genetic diversity. Interestingly, broad genetic variability for stress-resilient traits in cultivated varieties, landraces, and wild relatives is preserved and actively used in the breeding pipeline. Further, contemporary cereal breeding techniques, viz. genome-wide association mapping, genomic selection, and genome editing, have resulted in various sequence resources, databases, and software packages. These genomic resources are assisting the translational cereal genomics in addition to the promotion of comparative genomics to accelerate discovery and functional analyses of genes in cereals and model plants. Additionally, various bioinformatic platforms and associated databases for stress-resilient cereal breeding are expected to play key roles in designing effective breeding strategies to make the best use of genomic resources in cereals. Here, we summarised genomic resources, bioinformatic tools, and databases made available in cereal omics towards their possible utility in the next-generation cereal breeding for stress resilience.