Assessing Diversity in Cassava through the Application of Metabolomics

Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is an important staple food in tropical and sub-tropical countries, primarily due to the relatively low resource input required and tolerance to drought and abiotic stress. Breeding has focussed on improved traits such as productivity, pest and disease resistance and nutritional quality. With the advent of modern omic technologies the opportunity now exists for more strategic approaches towards modern breeding. In order to capture the biochemical diversity existing in cassava the metabolomic profile of 20 diverse varieties generated in vitro and in the field has been obtained using a multi-platform approach. The varieties were chosen to reflect diversity based on traits of interest such as secondary metabolite production that confer biotic stress resistances and valuable commodities such as starch (and modified starch) content. These accessions have also formed the basis of several breeding programmes on-going and previously over several decades, as a result the metabolic markers associated with specific traits can be assessed as well as gaining knowledge of the metabolic diversity existing and their routes to domestication. Integration of these datasets with genomic information will assist future breeding studies.