GLOBAL APPROACHES FOR IDENTIFICATION OF MARKERS OF SEED QUALITY

The term ‘Global or Genome Wide' means the study of expression of thousands of genes at once to create global picture of cellular function. The study of ‘-omics' is important to know the structure, functions & regulation of genes, to understand evolution & relationships of genomes and to interpret interactions between the genes and its environment. Studies using ‘-omics' approaches support the finding that a main contributor of seed germination success is the quality of the messenger RNAs stored during embryo maturation on the mother plant. Use of global approaches such as transcriptomics, proteomics or metabolomics analysis could also result in the identification of new markers of seed quality. Transcriptome analysis are being used to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in dormancy loss by comparing the transcriptome of dormant and after-ripened embryos using a tissue-specific microarray approach. Proteomics have been used to describe the effect of different factors involved during germination and different developmental stages. The developmental changes triggered by internal programming and response to environmental factors induce metabolic transitions that result in modifications of final metabolite concentration. The characterization of biomarkers of seed vigor for seed improvement via breeding programs and/or technological and biotechnological approaches will allow the production of seeds of the highest possible quality with the goal of improving crop yields, particularly under stressful environmental conditions. There is need to identify areas in seed science that need attention from transcriptomic, proteomics and metabolomic based researches.