China: Major Exclusive Project Under Tobacco Genome Program Started

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online  12/12/2013

China National Tobacco Corporation held a meeting in Changsha City of south central China's Hunan Province on December 1 to kick off the research project of "tobacco anti-CMV, tobacco brown spot chain molecular marker development and NC82 and K326 varieties resistance improvement".

The project of "tobacco anti-CMV, tobacco brown spot chain molecular marker development and NC82 and K326 varieties resistance improvement" is a major exclusive research project under the tobacco genome program of China's tobacco industry.

The meeting was intended for discussions on schemes for fulfillment of the project and planning and arrangement for research assignments to the institutions designated to execute the project.

The project of "tobacco anti-CMV, tobacco brown spot chain molecular marker development and NC82 and K326 varieties resistance improvement" was approved by China National Tobacco Corporation in 2013. It is mainly intended for tapping, appraising and utilizing the CMV and tobacco brown spot resistance source resistibility favorable allele variation; appraising major QTLs expressed stably by different resistance sources resistibility locus under different environmental conditions; and making a use of molecular marker auxiliary polymerization method to improve the resistibility of the tobacco varieties ofNC82 and K326 against the CMV and tobacco brown spots.

On the sidelines of the meeting, members of the taskforce designated to execute the project visited the flue-cured tobacco DH breeding technology platform jointly established by Hunan Provincial Tobacco Corporation and Hunan Agricultural University. A group of experts with the Tobacco Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences – in the capacity of the institution presiding over the project – fully affirmed the flue-cured tobacco DH breeding technology platform and the progress it has made in research undertaken by it.

It is the first time for Hunan Provincial Tobacco Corporation to participate in research of subjects in the major exclusive project under the tobacco genome program of China National Tobacco Corporation, in the capacity of a leading undertaking institution, which will contribute to actively promoting the establishment of the tobacco genome research platform by the tobacco industry of Hunan and the development of human resources for molecular marker auxiliary breeding by it, and which will also contribute to laying a solid foundation for organic integration between conventional means of tobacco breeding and molecular marker auxiliary breeding.

The participants in the meeting were leaders from the Science and Technology Division and South Central China Station of Hunan Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Administration, members of the taskforce designated to execute the project from the Tobacco Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the tobacco industry of Chongqing City in southwest China, and members of the tobacco breeding team of Hunan Provincial Tobacco Corporation. Enditem