Orchid Genomics and Developmental Biology

Orchidaceae family comprises more than 30,000 species distributed nearly every habitat worldwide and it is the largest family of flowering plants. Many species and cultivars of orchids are popular in the global horticultural productions, such as cut flowers and pot plants. Although studies on biotechnology, genomic analysis and developmental biology have contributed to a significant progress on orchid research during the past decade, numerous mysteries on flowering and organ development regulation still remain unrevealed. In orchid studies, as orchids are considered non-model plants, there is a lack of novel mutants as materials to deal with experiments on embryogenesis, organ development and flowering, for instance. Due to its several unique morphological and physiological characteristics, such as the immature embryo of seeds, gynandrium and labellum of flowers and crassulacean acid metabolism, the characteristics of orchids in morphology and physiology do not match with model-plants, such as Arabidopsis or rice. For example, when orchid embryos get matured, they become protocorms, which is a unique structure that contains scale leaves instead of cotyledon. Thus, mechanistic studies considering gene function or physiological insights towards embryo development of orchids may not simply follow or highly match similar phenomenon observed in model plants.

This Research Topic therefore aims to integrate recent innovative approaches and attempt to make significant progress in orchid biology by expanding knowledge on the following subjects:
- The use of mutants, molecular markers and genetic engineering towards deciphering flowering mechanisms, and embryo and organ development.
- Functional genomics applied to flowering, and embryo and organ development.
- Mechanistic insights involving flower, embryo and organ physiology.

Overall, this Research Topic addresses studies in genomics and developmental biology to reveal mechanisms of flowering, embryo and organ development in orchids. The fruitful results may be applied in the breeding and production of orchids. Original Research is particularly welcome to this Research Topic.