Genome Wide Cross Transferable STMS Markers in Genus Oryza

Among the different economically important plants, cereals contributed immensely to the progress of human civilization. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one such cereal crop species, which belongs to the order Poales of Poaceae (Gramineae) family and is grown in diverse altitudes and ecosystems around the world. The ever-increasing human population along with the reduction of cultivable lands is posing challenges to food security which is further compounded by changes in climate. To address those issues, besides policy interventions, the solution also partly lies in searching and further utilizing the genes or alleles which may have been left out during domestication followed by loss of variability in modem plant breeding especially in post green revolution era. The wild Oryza genotypes are considered as important repository for those kinds of untapped genes or alleles.

More number of wild rice genome sequences are expected to become available soon. Although new generation markers like SNPs are now available, still there is a long way to go for their widespread utilization in the case of wild rice. On the contrary, genome wide STMS markers resources, when available, can be readily used by all laboratories for pre-breeding with wild rice. The current research aims at utilizing the whole genome sequences ofdifferent wild rice species to develop a conserved set ofcommon genome­ wide cross transferable STMS markers for different species of 0ryza; so that with minimum resources, researchers can carry out targeted breeding activities involving a large number of species, directly or indirectly. The marker resources can also be used for the characterization of germplasm and natural populations of wild rice besides the development of populations with genome-wide distributed or targeted introgression in the background ofcultivated rice which will include both Asian and African rice. These populations can support large-scale mining and utilization of genes or alleles of wild species lost or untapped during domestication.