DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2020.v07i08.002

Pages: 180-185

As genome sequencing of the main plant species was performed in the last decades, agriculture started undergoing some deep changes as well. Genomics provided new tools to investigate plants genotypes and their relationship with the phenotype. Traditional methods for genetic improvement of plant species are now supported by innovative technologies, based on NGS, allowing to simply sequence genomes with times and costs significantly lower than before. Through the use of these technologies, a very large number of molecular markers, such as SSRs and SNPs, became available, generating new polymorphisms databases that made it possible to improve the genetic selection of plant species. This work, after showing a brief state of the art about genome sequencing of the main cultivated plants, discusses how their genetic improvement has changed after the introduction of the new NGS technologies. In fact, they couple very relevant molecular techniques to the traditional phenotypic selection, both in terms of markers for assisted or genomic selection and of information about genes functions influencing plants features. Undoubtedly, genomics will have a more and more relevant role in plant genetic improvement, by changing the traditional breeding to a Next Generation Breeding.