Successfully Using Nrgene's Genomagic™ Platform to Evaluate Fit-for-Purpose Genomes and Genome Management Strategies

Genomics assisted breeding is about accelerating the development of superior germplasm by using genomic information to drive the decision-making process involved in selecting better material or trait loci.

NGS technologies represent a step change in how genomics assisted breeding can further accelerate the breeding process. Barriers, however, exist for the adoption of these advanced NGS based genomic capabilities for most breeding programs. These barriers are primarily due to inadequate data management strategies that prevent breeding programs from fully leveraging the potential inherent to the availability of multiple genomes for any given crop.

NRGene’s GenoMagic platform represents an opportunity to use the right, fit-for-purpose genomes managed in a way that (1) allows analytical access to all the genetic diversity and (2) reduces the complexity of the data to units of information that readily flow into breeding analytics. Syngenta used this system in series of studies designed to assess the system's added value in cases where results could be benchmarked against conventional approaches.

This presentation will cover two evaluations of the pan-genomic strategies underlying the GenoMAGIC system and how they improve analytics linked to breeding improvements. One evaluation focuses on NGS analyses in hybrid tomato, while the other on Genome Prediction in maize. In both cases the use of GenoMAGIC was found to significantly improve the outcome over conventional, reference genome dependent approaches.