Study of Genetics Essay -- Biology, Genomics Era, Kenaf

1 INTRODUCTION Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) is a type of fiber crop (Dempsey, 1975) and is commercially cultivated in more than 20 countries, particularly in India, China, Thailand and Vietnam (Fao, 2008). World production of kenaf and allied fibers reported as 3,251,125 tons in 2009 (Fao, 2011). Kenaf has a wide range of applications in making biocopmosite board, textile, industrial filters, and high-quality paper. Malaysia is one of the main exporters of timber and timber based products in the world. Renewable resource for biocomposite and timber based products in Malaysia is one of the essentials in agriculture sector. Kenaf has been considered as a potential renewable source for biocomposite making industry in Malaysia. Furthermore, kenaf has been considered as a valuable substitute for tobacco plantation in Malaysia. Kenaf production is increased from 1,163 tons in 2005 to 4,185 tons in 2007 as reported by Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister's Department, Malaysia (2008). Lack of suitable kenaf varieties for Malaysian climate is one the challenges that hinder kenaf integration. Kenaf varieties have not been extensively evaluated in Malaysia. The number of kenaf commercialized varieties is limited in the world. Besides, very few studies have been conducted on genetic control of fiber yield and fiber quality of kenaf. Understanding of the inheritance and genetic control of the fiber yield and quality will help in structuring breeding strategy to develop cultivars with improved fiber yield and quality. New tools and methods have been introduced to facilitate quantitative genetic studies, particularly in the study of complex traits. In genomics era, plant breeders benefited from new technologies and advances i... ...echnology to detect DNA melting behavior and developments in saturating DNA dyes, made possible to accurately plot and analyze melting behavior of targeted DNA (Vossen et al., 2009). High resolution melting (HRM) is a post PCR technique which can be used for high throughput mutation scanning and genotyping (Gundry, 2003). HRM curve analysis procedure can be used for SNP detection (Becsà ¡gh et al., 2010; De Koeyer et al., 2010; Lehmensiek et al., 2008; Miyamoto et al.; Rouleau et al., 2009; Studer et al., 2009a; Ujino-Ihara et al., 2010; Wittwer et al., 2003; Wittwer, 2009). Applicability of HRM curve analysis for genotyping of plants using SNP markers recently have been reported by many researcher (De Koeyer et al., 2010; Ganopoulos et al., 2010; Hofinger et al., 2009; Lehmensiek et al., 2008; Picard and Bosco, 2008; Studer et al., 2009b; Ujino-Ihara et al., 2010).