Marker-Trait Association Analysis in Horticultural Crops

Dear Colleagues,

The world demand for horticultural crop is in continuous increase. Thus, to meet consumers’ expectations, novel cultivars showing enhanced agricultural traits (e.g., fruit quality, yield, resistance to biotic and abiotic stress) must be developed. To this extent, a deep understanding of the genetic basis regulating phenotypes of interest represents an important prerequisite both to understand the trait physiology and for breeding. The rapid advent of high-throughput genotyping platforms enabled the simultaneous interrogation of hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) employing a dedicated array or through whole-genome resequencing (WGS) approaches. This unprecedented source of genotypic variability can be linked to phenotypes of interest through marker-trait association analysis such as: genome-wide association study (GWAS), genome selection (GS), pedigree-based analysis (PBA), and bi-parental approaches. The identification of molecular markers in strong linkage with a quantitative trait locus (QTL) provides useful insights to understand the genetic determinism of traits of agronomical relevance. Furthermore, molecular markers can represent a valuable tool for breeders for a genetic-guided seedling or parental selection. Indeed, the use of molecular markers in strong linkage with an agronomical trait allows a fast and relatively inexpensive screening of seedlings with consequent reduction in the time and space needed to develop novel cultivars showing superior phenotypic characteristics.

Dr. Mario Di Guardo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.