Browse Articles

Review Article|22 Jan 2014|OPEN
Molecular genetics and genomics of the Rosoideae: state of the art and future perspectives
Sara Longhi1 , Lara Giongo1 , Matteo Buti1 , Nada Surbanovski1 , Roberto Viola1 , Riccardo Velasco1 , Judson A Ward2 and Daniel J Sargent,1 ,
1Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all’Adige, Italy
2Driscoll’s, Watsonville, CA, USA
*Corresponding author. E-mail: sargent.daniel@mayo.edu

Horticulture Research 1,
Article number: 1 (2014)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/hortres.2014.1
Views: 987

Received: 04 Nov 2013
Revised: 24 Nov 2013
Accepted: 24 Nov 2013
Published online: 22 Jan 2014

Abstract

The Rosoideae is a subfamily of the Rosaceae that contains a number of species of economic importance, including the soft fruit species strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa), red (Rubus idaeus) and black (Rubus occidentalis) raspberries, blackberries (Rubus spp.) and one of the most economically important cut flower genera, the roses (Rosa spp.). Molecular genetics and genomics resources for the Rosoideae have developed rapidly over the past two decades, beginning with the development and application of a number of molecular marker types including restriction fragment length polymorphisms, amplified fragment length polymorphisms and microsatellites, and culminating in the recent publication of the genome sequence of the woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, and the development of high throughput single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-genotyping resources for Fragaria, Rosa and Rubus. These tools have been used to identify genes and other functional elements that control traits of economic importance, to study the evolution of plant genome structure within the subfamily, and are beginning to facilitate genomic-assisted breeding through the development and deployment of markers linked to traits such as aspects of fruit quality, disease resistance and the timing of flowering. In this review, we report on the developments that have been made over the last 20 years in the field of molecular genetics and structural genomics within the Rosoideae, comment on how the knowledge gained will improve the efficiency of cultivar development and discuss how these advances will enhance our understanding of the biological processes determining agronomically important traits in all Rosoideae species.