Precision breeding

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Smart breeding or SMART Breeding or MAS designates a form of plant breeding or animal breeding . SMART stands for “Selection with Markers and Advanced Reproductive Technologies”, MAS for “Marker Assisted Selection”. When choosing the parent generations to be crossed with each other, researchers no longer rely solely on external characteristics. The genetic make-up is analyzed in order to then select the right crossing partner.

Precision breeding is based on the same laboratory technology as, for example, green genetic engineering , with one important difference: in the end, no foreign genes are incorporated into the DNA of the offspring , so no transgenic organisms are created.

plants

technology

When selecting the right plants, so-called gene markers are used . With the help of short, artificially produced DNA snippets (probes) that attach to specific gene markers in the genome, the researchers can quickly identify whether the desired gene variants are present in a plant. Since the gene marker test already works with young seedlings, time is saved in contrast to traditional breeding, in which you have to wait for the plants to grow. A large part of the breeding selection work can be done very early in the laboratory. An important limitation of this technique is that the desired genes must already exist in a plant in order to be able to grow them.

Examples

With the help of Smart Breeding, the Monsanto company was able to develop a soy variety that produces less linolenic acid , which is responsible for the harmful trans fatty acids when the soy is processed. The International Rice Research Institute succeeded in breeding a variety of rice that can withstand flooding of the fields for several weeks. Precision breeding is not limited to grain . For example, tomatoes with a high sugar content were grown for the ketchup industry . Hortresearch succeeded in developing an apple variety with red colored pulp.

Animals

In animal breeding, MAS is known as genomic selection .

See also

literature

Web links