Czech Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 2022 (vol. 58), issue 3
Thematic issue: Gregor Johann Mendel - 200th anniversary of the birth

Mendel and progress in 200 yearsEditorial

Jiří Sekerák

Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., 2022, 58(3):95 | DOI: 10.17221/21/2022-CJGPB  

Chromosome-centric approaches in crop genomics: Focus on Mendel's pea plantReview

Petr Cápal, Jaroslav Doležel

Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., 2022, 58(3):96-112 | DOI: 10.17221/11/2022-CJGPB  

Gregor Mendel laid foundations of genetics after his experiments in pea plant hybridization. The choice of pea (Pisum sativum L.) and its seven morphological characters as a model system was fortuitous and enabled the fundamental discoveries. Nevertheless, other model organisms were chosen by his followers who aimed at discovering the nature of hereditary information. This remained so until the era of molecular biology and genomics, largely due to the huge size of the pea plant genome. However, the introduction of methods for dissecting the genome to single chromosomes by flow cytometric sorting simplified physical mapping and sequencing the...

Interspecific hybridization and plant breeding: From historical retrospective through work of Mendel to current cropsReview

David Kopecký, Antonio Martín, Petr Smýkal

Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., 2022, 58(3):113-126 | DOI: 10.17221/19/2022-CJGPB  

There is a relatively long history of plant hybridization traced back to ancient time, both from theoretical as well as practical perspectives. At first considered as an evolutionary dead-end, it was soon recognized to have important role in plant speciation. Beside his work on pea, G.J. Mendel also conducted interspecific hybridization using several species including Hieracium. Current knowledge shows that the frequent occurrence of wide hybridization in nature is often connected with polyploidy. Interspecific hybridization has played a role in plant domestication and numerous crops are allopolyploids, sometimes of complex hybrid origin....

Pea transformation: History, current status and challengesReview

Michaela Ludvíková, Miroslav Griga

Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., 2022, 58(3):127-161 | DOI: 10.17221/24/2022-CJGPB  

This review recapitulates the history, important milestones, the current status, and the perspectives of the pea (Pisum sativum L.) transformation as a tool for pea crop breeding. It summarises the developments of the pea transformation from the first methodological experiments to achieving the complete transformation and regeneration of genetically modified (GM) plants, transformation with the first genes of interest (GOI), to recent techniques of targeted genome editing. We show how recent biotechnological methods and genetic engineering may contribute to pea breeding in order to speed up the breeding process and for the creation of new...

Mendelian inheritance of introrse orientated anthers in Brassica rapaOriginal Paper

Jaroslav Salava, Derek Lydiate

Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., 2022, 58(3):162-165 | DOI: 10.17221/107/2021-CJGPB  

The inheritance of anther orientation of 154 individuals from two B₁ populations of Brassica rapa (syn. Brassica campestris) was evaluated under controlled conditions in a greenhouse. The anther orientation was evaluated visually at the time of fully open flowers. The observed extrorse:introrse ratios were 1 : 1 in R-o-18 × (R-o-18 × RM29) population and 3 : 1 in R-o-18 × (R-o-18 × R c-50) population. It was concluded that this trait is controlled by two duplicated pairs of genes (A₁, A₂) for extrorse anthers, either of which can produce extrorse anthers when a single dominant allele...