Skip to main content
ARS Home » Midwest Area » Urbana, Illinois » Soybean/maize Germplasm, Pathology, and Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #213704
Title: Marker-Assisted Selection in Soybean Breeding

Author
item Walker, David
item MONTEROS, MARIA - SAM ROBERTS NOBLE FOUNDAT
item YATES, JENNIFER - MONSANTO CORP, GALENA,MD

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/13/2008
Publication Date: 2/1/2010
Citation: Walker, D.R., Monteros, M.J., Yates, J.L. 2010. Marker-Assisted Selection in Soybean Breeding. In: Bilyeu, K., Ratnaparkhe, M.B. and Kole, C. editors. Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Soybean. Enfield, New Hampshire: Science Publishers. p. 123-167.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: In the late 1990's Nevin Young expressed a cautious optimism for the future of marker-assisted breeding. Although marker-assisted selection (MAS) for soybean cyst nematode (SCN; Heterodera glycines) was offered as a case study on how genotype-based selection could be useful and cost-effective to a plant breeder, the reader was reminded that to get to that point, a great deal of time and money had been invested in refining the tools and techniques, that crossovers occasionally occurred between the most important resistance locus and the nearest useful marker, and that no SCN-resistant public cultivars developed using MAS had yet been released. Since the publication of Dr. Young’s assessment, numerous advances have occurred in molecular marker and bioinformatics technologies, in the increased availability and density of markers, and through innovative genomics studies of soybean and other plants. Molecular markers have been used to determine genetic distances between accessions, assist in the identification of novel sources of variation, confirm the pedigree and identity of new varieties, locate quantitative trait loci (QTL) / genes of interest, and for marker-assisted breeding. Markers have also been used to understand the number of genes and their interactions for a number of quantitative traits. Altogether these technological advances and the research discoveries that they have facilitated have enhanced the potential contribution that MAS could make to soybean breeding. This chapter summarizes the role of MAS in soybean breeding in the first decade of the 21st Century, and reviews new and developing technologies and strategies to leverage information gained from genomics research.