Study on Genetic Factors Controlling Complex Traits in Crops

Dear Colleagues,

Most important agronomic traits, such as yield, quality, plant architecture, and stress tolerance (including cold tolerance, high-temperature tolerance, salt tolerance, and drought tolerance), are complex traits. These traits are regulated by multiple genetic factors, so their inheritance is complicated and easy for the environment to influence. The gene cloning of crop-complex traits has only been reported in a few crops, such as rice, maize, tomato, etc. The genetic analysis of crop-complex traits needs further exploration. The cloning and mechanism of regulating genes for complex traits have only been reported in a few crops, so it is necessary to further explore the genetic study of crop-complex traits.

With the development of high-throughput sequencing technology, omics studies, such as genome, variome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, and microbiome, have been developed rapidly. By integrating multiple omics of data, we can comprehensively and systematically understand the composition of complex agronomic traits, improve the efficiency of identifying the genetic factors regulating complex agronomic traits, and promote the process of molecular breeding. However, with the increasing amount and complexity of omics data from different sources, there are still challenges remaining on how to analyze these huge omics data quickly and accurately. Therefore, new insights and analytical methods are needed to use the huge amount of information to elucidate complex agronomic traits.

This research theme encourages the submission of recent research on the analysis of complex agronomic traits and the use of multiple omics of data to better understand the genetic basis of crop-complex traits. The results of this topic can be used to accelerate genetic improvements in crops. We welcome submissions in the following directions, including but not limited to:

1. New study of genetic basis for crop-complex traits
2. New methods or tools for integrating omics data
3. New genetic selection strategies by using multi omics data

Dr. Xueyong Yang
Dr. Shenhao Wang
Guest Editors

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• complex traits
• crop improvement
• multi omics
• genetic mapping
• gene cloning
• molecular breeding