In higher plants, polyploidy has played a significant role in diversification and speciation to drive evolution. Using biotechnology approaches, polyploidy can be induced artificially, chiefly by antimitotic agents, and is a powerful strategy for plant breeding. Duplicating whole sets of chromosome not only increases copies of existing genes but produces additional alterations of the genome such as epigenetic changes and modulated gene expression that influence a wide range of phenotypes. Consequently, agricultural and horticultural crops with ploidy increase often exhibit anatomical/morphological changes and enhanced biomass/yield, vigor and stress tolerance, which are potentially valuable for the commercial success of their products.
Because synthetic polyploidy is crucial to plant breeding, and because deeply mechanistic studies on associated genomic changes and their phenotypic consequences are still lacking, this Research Topic aims to integrate recent innovative approaches, as well as mechanistic insights, to further our understanding of artificial polyploidy in flowering plants.
This Research Topic is focused on, but not limited to, the following subjects:
- The implications of polyploidy in plant breeding including disease resistance, stress tolerance and production enhancement including, for instance, secondary metabolites.
- Mechanistic insights into polyploid biology such as alterations of growth and development, morphology, yield, metabolism, sterility, and genome structure and function.
- Development of novel protocols for polyploidy induction, evaluation and screening.
- The use of high-throughput technologies towards deciphering mechanisms of polyploidy formation and the resulting phenotypic changes.
Please note, descriptive studies using omics approaches will be considered for review only if they are extended to provide further insights into the mechanisms of polyploid induction and/or subsequent genomic and phenotypic responses.
In higher plants, polyploidy has played a significant role in diversification and speciation to drive evolution. Using biotechnology approaches, polyploidy can be induced artificially, chiefly by antimitotic agents, and is a powerful strategy for plant breeding. Duplicating whole sets of chromosome not only increases copies of existing genes but produces additional alterations of the genome such as epigenetic changes and modulated gene expression that influence a wide range of phenotypes. Consequently, agricultural and horticultural crops with ploidy increase often exhibit anatomical/morphological changes and enhanced biomass/yield, vigor and stress tolerance, which are potentially valuable for the commercial success of their products.
Because synthetic polyploidy is crucial to plant breeding, and because deeply mechanistic studies on associated genomic changes and their phenotypic consequences are still lacking, this Research Topic aims to integrate recent innovative approaches, as well as mechanistic insights, to further our understanding of artificial polyploidy in flowering plants.
This Research Topic is focused on, but not limited to, the following subjects:
- The implications of polyploidy in plant breeding including disease resistance, stress tolerance and production enhancement including, for instance, secondary metabolites.
- Mechanistic insights into polyploid biology such as alterations of growth and development, morphology, yield, metabolism, sterility, and genome structure and function.
- Development of novel protocols for polyploidy induction, evaluation and screening.
- The use of high-throughput technologies towards deciphering mechanisms of polyploidy formation and the resulting phenotypic changes.
Please note, descriptive studies using omics approaches will be considered for review only if they are extended to provide further insights into the mechanisms of polyploid induction and/or subsequent genomic and phenotypic responses.