Marker Assisted Selection

With all of the advances in molecular biology, it may seem surprising to find out that traditional plant breeding methods are still needed in the development of plant varieties. Today, the backcross procedure is most often used to move a transgene from a good tissue culture variety that was used in transformation to an elite experimental line or variety. Backcrossing is more efficient than transforming the elite line because most transformation protocols are optimized for a specific (often poorly adapted and lower yielding) laboratory line. Many elite lines (which are high yielding) are not amenable for transformation. Hence genetic engineers transform their lab line and breeders backcross the trangene from the lab line into the elite line. Marker assisted selection is an indirect selection process where a trait of interest is selected based on marker linked to the trait of interest Marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) Background selection can greatly accelerate the backcrossing programme compared to using conventional backcrossing.