Accelerated Marker Assisted Selection/ Breeding Using High Throughput KASP Genotyping and KASP LGC SNPline Workflow

Marker assisted selection/breeding (MAS/MAB) provides focus to conventional agricultural breeding programs and enables accelerated production of novel breeds and cultivars using polymorphic alleles as a precision breeding tool. The application of KASP™ chemistry on our  SNPlineinstruments can accelerate both plant and animal breeding programs effectively with cost efficiency.

LGC’s aim is to provide an easy to use service or implement the SNPline workflow for all agricultural breeding programs, from SNP discovery using NGS platforms to assay design and validation. KASP technology can be applied at any point during the breeding program regardless of project size. The genotyping service can include assistance with assay design and assay optimisation.  KASPassays developed in SNP discovery experiments can be used throughout breeding programs without restriction of sample sizes (parental screening to field trial scale).

KASP chemistry has been implemented in breeding projects of global importance, as with the Global Challenge Program (GCP) within which a wide range of economically important crop species have been furthered improved for farmers working in challenging environments. The GCP project has enabled the development of thousands of KASP genotyping assays, and these are now publically available to the whole agricultural community.

African Buffalo susceptibility to ‘Bovine Tuberculosis’, highlighted how identified polymorphisms/genes may hold the potential for marker-assisted breeding programmes. The aim of breeding was more Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) resistant animals and herds within both the national parks and the private sector. KASP genotyping from LGC enabled the university to determine the alleles conferring resistance at a specific locus within the buffalo genome.

We outline here the use of the LGC-MAS workflow and describe some of the projects that have are built on our technology.