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History of Marker Assisted Selection
A primitive form of Marker Assisted Selection has been going on for millenia, starting with choosing crops with desirable traits to breed with. However, during the 20th century, as technologies developed, scientists began to observe a new way of attaining desired traits in organisms - through MAS. This technology timelines shows the steps into which MAS came to be.
10,000 Years in the making
8000 BCE - 1923
Circa 8000 BCE: Plants and animals were first domesticated (Citation 7)
1860's: Mendel discovered the laws of Mendelian Inheritance. (Citation 11)
1923: The idea of Marker Assisted Selection originates from this year (Citation 5)
MAS beginnings
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1961: Thoday is the first scientist to identify genes using monogenic markers.
1970’s: Genetic markers that are linked with genes based on DNA are found. (Citation 3)
1980’s: Genotypes are being linked to a type of markers called allyzone markers.
Development
02
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Specialization
03
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1986 - Present
The Future and its Challenges
Although Marker Assisted Selection looks very promising, there are some problems that need to be overcome for this technology to bear fruit. At the present time, MAS is limited in its functionality compared to GMOs due to three reasons.
1) MAS can only select desired traits that were originally in the target organism’s genome.
2) Crops that have long generation time will take long to breed so fewer cycles of MAS are performed.
3) MAS will not function on clonally propagated crops because they don’t bear seeds or the next generation is too different. Some examples of these are bananas and yams. (Citation 6)
1986: Restriction fragment length polymorphism, or RFLP for short, is used to sequence DNA. Scientists Bernatzky and Tanksley create the first linkage map of the tomato using RFLPs. (Citation 12)
1990’s: RAPDs stand for randomly-amplified polymorphic DNAs, which were markers developed using PCR based DNA marking. (Citation 12)
1995: Amplified fragment length polymorphism, or AFLP for short, is introduced, using PCR as a basis for genetic engineering.
1996: Microsatellites, or simple sequence repeats, are discovered, used as molecular markers in marker assisted selection.
Professor John Thoday (1916-2008) successfully labeled genes though monogenic markers.
Pic cit 8
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Often called the Father of Genetics, Mendel was a huge component in the making of MAS.
Modern technologies and discoveries has led to the introduction of Marker Assisted Selection in many agricultural sectors around the world. The importance of each type of marker is huge, as they allow MAS to function.
1961 - 1980
Click to begin a Prezi on the history of MAS and some of its uses and advantages! (Citation 5)
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