Gene editing in vegetable breeding: opportunities & challenges
Jan van den Berg, BASF vegetable seeds
Plant breeding in its essence consists of the introduction of genetic variation and subsequent selection of favorable individuals from breeding populations. Traditionally, selection is based on phenotypic variation. With the onset of molecular genetics these phenotypic traits have been associated with molecular markers (sometimes the causal gene) facilitating marker assisted selection. Nowadays selection is a combination of genetic and phenotypic selection. An inherent problem of the process being that while introducing favorable alleles, favorable alleles from other linked traits may be lost. Plant breeding therefore is a numbers game to find the optimal combination. Traditional genetic variation coming from wild or even closely related accessions has this inherent problem of compromise between favorable and unfavorable alleles. Targeted gene editing allows a precise improvement of an allele or multiple alleles while keeping the others intact. This only works when you have complete clarity on the gene(s) at stake, which is still often not the case for vegetables. During the presentation I will discuss the innovative opportunities of gene editing as well as the practical constraints in applying the technology.
