79438 - Biotechnological Approach To Increase Sustainability

Learning outcomes

The course will provide the essential knowledge about the methods, application and the state of the art of plant and microbial biotechnologies including breeding for enhancing plant characteristics and fitness. A special focus will be paid on how plant-microbe interactions increase plant productivity, resistance and resilience to external stimuli Crop biotechnologies and molecular application will be studied. Students have to demonstrate a critical knowledge of the main goals and strategies of breeding in fruit tree aimed to release or select new genotypes for sustainable production

Course contents

Introduction to plant biotechnologies. In vitro culture. Embryorescue. In vitro morphogenesis and regeneration. Cell culture. Early selection in vitro. Somaclonal variation. Haploids. Main techniques of molecular marker analysis analysis in fruit tree species (RFLP, SCAR, CAPS, SSR, AFLP, SNP, functional markers). Applications of molecular markers in fruit tree species: identification of markers linked to monogenic traits, molecular maps, QTL analysis and polygenic traits, marker-assisted selection, identification of genes, genetic diversity. Genetic transformation in fruit trees and applications. The NBT appraoches

 

Readings/Bibliography

Handouts and selected papers

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures, lab experiments

Assessment methods

oral exam

Teaching tools

Beamer, equipments in the biotechnology lab

Office hours

See the website of Luca Dondini