Genetic and Genomic Resources of Small Millets

ABSTRACT

Small millets are very promising agricultural entity to ensure global food security. They gained remarkable importance in agriculture due to their resilience to climatic changes and increasing demand for nutritious food and feed. The genetic variability in the core and mini-core germplasm of small millets was characterized for nutritional composition and capacity to tolerate abiotic stresses that can be infused in breeding programs. Other than the foxtail millet, availability of genomic information in small millets is far below the mark for use in marker-assisted breeding and other genetic improvement programs. The genome sequence of foxtail millet has recently triggered a plethora of post-genomic analysis and envisaged foxtail millet as a model organism for the C₄ grasses and bioenergy research. Recent developments in the next-generation sequencing technologies enabled us, with the simultaneous discovery of high-throughput markers and multiplexed genotyping of germplasm, to speedup marker-assisted breeding. In this context, an in-depth analysis of the wealth of diverse germplasm resources and future perspectives of integrating genomics in genome-wide marker-trait association and breeding in small millets is worthy.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity
• food security
• Genomics
• genomic resources
• molecular markers
• small millets germplasm

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. Manoj Prasad, National Institute on Plant Genome Research, New Delhi and Professor Katrien M. Devos, University of Georgia, Athens, USA for critically evaluating and editing the manuscript.