Meiosis Research in Orphan and Non-orphan Tropical Crops

Abstract

Plant breeding is directly linked to the development of crops that can effectively adapt to challenging conditions such as soil nutrient depletion, water pollution, drought, and anthropogenic climate change. These conditions are extremely relevant in developing countries already burdened with population growth and unchecked urban expansion, especially in the tropical global southern hemisphere. Engineering new crops thus has potential to enhance food security, prevent hunger, and spur sustainable agricultural growth. A major tool for the improvement of plant varieties in this context could be the manipulation of homologous recombination and genome haploidization during meiosis. The isolation or the design of mutations in key meiotic genes may facilitate DNA recombination and transmission of important genes quickly and efficiently. Genome haploidization through centromeric histone mutants could be an option to create new crosses rapidly. This review covers technical approaches to engineer key meiotic genes in tropical crops as a blueprint for future work and examples of tropical crops in which such strategies could be applied are given.

Characterization of germline development and identification of genes associated with germline specification in pineapple

“…A useful tool for improving plant varieties is the manipulation of homologous recombination and genome haploidization during meiosis 49 . Meiotic recombination provides genetic diversity in populations and ensures accurate homologous chromosome segregation for genome integrity 50 , 51 .…”

Developmental Biology in Central America, the northern region of South America and the Caribbean

“…Dr. Blanco research team has done extensive work on the factors that modulate retinal ganglion cell survival and optic nerve regeneration following injury. Her studies on the amphibian model mainly focus on retinoic acid and factors such as FGF-2, BDNF, and CNTF where she combines molecular and anatomical analyses (Duprey-Diaz et al 2002a&b, Vega-Melendez et al 2014, Blanco et al 2008, 2019.…”

Plant reproduction research in Latin America: Toward sustainable agriculture in a changing environment

“…Others are less well known but still important in terms of food security and cultural identity for local communities. These crops include amaranth (Olmos et al., 2022), quinoa (Isobe et al., 2018), and cassava (Bolaños‐Villegas & Argüello‐Miranda, 2019).…”

“…It is also the home of many of the world's most important crops owing to millennia of plant breeding by the cultures of Mexico, Central America, and the Andes (Gepts, 2010). Some of the crops are well known, such as maize (Guzzon et al., 2021), common bean (Rendón‐Anaya et al., 2017), potatoes (Fajardo‐Escoffié, 2022), tomatoes (Razifard et al., 2020), avocado (Rendón‐Anaya et al., 2019), papaya (Yue et al., 2022), cacao (Bolaños‐Villegas & Argüello‐Miranda, 2019), and vanilla (Watteyn et al., 2023). Others are less well known but still important in terms of food security and cultural identity for local communities.…”