Plant Gene and Trait 2024, Vol.15, No.1, 15-22 http://genbreedpublisher.com/index.php/pgt 15 Review and Progress Open Access Genetic Mechanisms of Crop Disease Resistance: New Advances in GWAS Cheng Jiang Institute of Life Sciences, Jiyang College of Zhejiang A&F University, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China Corresponding email: 2397383131@qq.com Plant Gene and Trait, 2024, Vol.15, No.1 doi: 10.5376/pgt.2024.15.0003 Received: 01 Jan., 2024 Accepted: 03 Feb., 2024 Published: 21 Feb., 2024 Copyright © 2024 Jiang, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Jiang C., 2024, Genetic mechanisms of crop disease resistance: new advances in GWAS, Plant Gene and Trait, 15(1): 15-22 (doi: 10.5376/pgt.2024.15.0003) Abstract The genetic mechanism of crop disease resistance is one of the key research contents in the field of agricultural biotechnology. In recent years, genome-wide association study (GWAS), as an effective genetic analysis tool, has made remarkable progress in revealing the genetic basis of crop disease resistance. This study summarized the application of GWAS in crop disease resistance research, including the principle and method of association analysis, the discovery of disease-resistance-related genes, and discussed the application of GWAS in disease resistance breeding, as well as the challenges and directions of future research. By summarizing these research results, this study can further understand the genetic mechanism of crop disease resistance and provide scientific basis for crop disease resistance breeding. Keywords Crop disease resistance; Genome-wide association study; Genetic mechanism; Resistance gene; Breeding technology 1 Introduction Crops are important food and cash crops for mankind, supporting the livelihoods and livelihood needs of hundreds of millions of people around the world. However, crop growth and development are often threatened by bacteria, fungi, viruses and other pathogens, which can lead to crop loss, quality degradation and even death. It seriously affects the stability and sustainability of agriculture (Fones et al., 2020). Crop diseases are estimated to cause tens of billions of dollars in economic losses globally each year, posing serious challenges to food security and farmers' livelihoods. In order to effectively deal with crop diseases, scientists have long been committed to exploring the genetic mechanism of crop disease resistance. Disease resistance is the result of the interaction between crops and pathogens, and has a complex genetic basis. Traditionally, some disease-resistant varieties have been bred through selection, hybridization, etc., but this method has some problems such as slow genetic progress, time-consuming and labor-consuming, and unstable disease resistance (Deng et al., 2020). With the rapid development of molecular biology and genomics technology, researchers began to explore the use of molecular genetics and genomics to reveal the genetic mechanism of crop disease resistance (Figure 1), in order to improve the resistance of crops more effectively. Genome-wide association study (GWAS), as a high-throughput genetic analysis method, has been widely used in crop disease resistance research in recent years. GWAS has numerous advantages over traditional breeding methods, such as its ability to reveal the genetic basis of complex traits by simultaneously detecting associations between thousands of natural variation loci and traits (Uffelmann et al., 2021). GWAS is not limited by genome structure and can be carried out without relying on reference varieties. GWAS can also uncover new associations between genotypes and phenotypes, providing new insights into the molecular mechanisms of crop disease resistance. This study systematically summarized the application progress of GWAS in crop disease resistance research in recent years, including the method principle, case studies and achievements, discussed the advantages and limitations of GWAS in revealing the genetic mechanism of crop disease resistance, and prospected the development trend of GWAS in crop disease resistance research in the future. It is hoped that this study can provide reference and inspiration for relevant researchers, promote the research of crop disease resistance to make new breakthroughs, and contribute to food security and sustainable agricultural development.
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