Development of Molecular Markers and Application for Breeding in Chinese Cabbage

Abstract

Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinensis) is an economically important vegetable crop as a source of the traditional food Kimchi in Korea. Although many varieties exhibiting desirable traits have been developed by the conventional selective breeding approach, breeding related to abiotic or biotic stresses, such as a particular pests or diseases, or tolerance to climatic conditions, is likely to be slow. This could be helped by an efficient method for selection from various, rapidly-evolved genetic resources on the basis of molecular markers. In particular, the Brassica genome sequencing project enables genome-wide discovery of genes or genetic variants associated with agricultural traits. We here discuss the recent progress in the field of Chinese cabbage breeding with regard to the application of molecular markers.