Personalised plant genetic analysis

Individual people respond to drugs differently in a genotype dependant manner. One of the key objectives of the human genome project was the acquisition of genomic information which would allow more targeted delivery of pharmaceutical products to consumers based on an individuals genotype, personalised medicine. The tools which have been developed in part to reach this goal are now being applied to agricultural species, including the cereals, and give greater power to genetic analysis. When used in combination, automated DNA Extraction, Next Generation Sequencing and high throughput genotyping technologies, allow a more tightly targeted approach to the resolution of genetic questions than ever before. It is now possible to quickly acquire genome wide data which differentiates between two or more key reference varieties which differ by important phenotypes. High throughput genotyping assays allow rapid analysis of populations which are either derived from the reference varieties or differ by traits. The same data can be used for cereal variety identification, an important quality control tool. These technologies have been deployed at the Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics and are aimed at a number of phenotypes, including starch properties, in barley, rice and wheat.