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Genomics for crop improvement

Guest Editors:
Eduard Akhunov, PhD, Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University, USA
David Edwards, PhD, University of Western Australia, Australia


Genome Biology called for submissions to our Collection on genomic techniques and possibilities for crop improvement.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Eduard Akhunov, PhD, Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University, USA

Eduard Akhunov is a faculty at the Department of Plant Pathology and the Director of the Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) at Kansas State University, where he leads crop genomics and breeding research program focused on identifying and characterizing novel agronomic genes in wheat and its wild relatives and their transfer into adapted wheat varieties. His team combines genomic technologies with phenomics, molecular genetics, data science, and genome editing to understand genes and pathways underlying wheat disease resistance, development, and grain yield and quality. In collaboration with researchers from industry and academia, his team uses gained knowledge to design high-yielding disease resistant wheat varieties better adapted to changing environments.

David Edwards, PhD, University of Western Australia, Australia

Professor Edwards gained an Honours degree in Agricultural Science from the University of Nottingham and a PhD from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. He has held positions within academia, government, and industry. In 2015 he moved to the University of Western Australia as Professor in Plant Genomics and in 2022 established the Centre for Applied Bioinformatics. He is one of Australia’s leading bioinformatics researchers, recognized as a Highly Cited researcher by Clarivate. His research interests include the structure and expression of plant genomes, the discovery and application of genome variation and the use of artificial intelligence to understand traits, with a focus on crop plants and accelerating crop improvement in the face of climate change. 

About the collection

Genome Biology is calling for submissions to our Collection on genomic techniques and possibilities for crop improvement. 

As the global demands for food, fiber, and bioenergy increase, harnessing the power of genomics is important for coping with these challenges sustainably.

Advances in sequencing technologies allow for efficient genome assembly for crops with complex ploidy. This generates valuable genomic resources for analyzing the genome at higher resolution, exploring the impact of genetic variants on the phenotypes in the field, elucidating the genetic basis of the agricultural traits, tracing the domestication history, and editing the genome, which provides exciting novel insights into crop genome biology and the opportunities for translating the findings from the lab to the field.  

This collection is calling for submissions on “Genomics for crop improvement”. We aim to advance our understanding of the crop genomics underlying improvement strategies for breeding.
 

Image credit: Budimir Jevtic / Stock.adobe.com

  1. Lettuce is a globally important leafy vegetable that exhibits diverse horticultural types and strong population structure, which complicates genetic analyses. To address this challenge, we develop the first mu...

    Authors: Hongyun Chen, Jiongjiong Chen, Ruifang Zhai, Dean Lavelle, Yue Jia, Qiwei Tang, Ting Zhu, Menglu Wang, Zedong Geng, Jianzhong Zhu, Hui Feng, Junru An, Jiansheng Liu, Weibo Li, Shenzhao Deng, Wandi Wang…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:67
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. A comprehensive study of the genome and genetics of superior germplasms is fundamental for crop improvement. As a widely adapted protein crop with high yield potential, the improvement in breeding and developm...

    Authors: Rong Liu, Chaoqin Hu, Dan Gao, Mengwei Li, Xingxing Yuan, Liyang Chen, Qin Shu, Zonghe Wang, Xin Yang, Zhengming Dai, Haitian Yu, Feng Yang, Aiqing Zheng, Meiyuan Lv, Vanika Garg, Chengzhi Jiao…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:62
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Loose-skin mandarins (LSMs) are among the oldest domesticated horticultural crops, yet their domestication history and the genetic basis underlying the formation of key selected traits remain unclear.

    Authors: Minqiang Yin, Xiaochan Song, Chao He, Xiyuan Li, Mengyuan Li, Jiangbo Li, Hao Wu, Chuanwu Chen, Li Zhang, Zhenmei Cai, Liqing Lu, Yanhui Xu, Xin Wang, Hualin Yi and Juxun Wu
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:61
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Publisher Correction to this article has been published in Genome Biology 2025 26:78

  4. Metabolomics is one of the most widely used omics tools for deciphering the functional networks of the metabolites for crop improvement. However, it is technically demanding and costly.

    Authors: Hui Feng, Yufei Li, Guoxin Dai, Zhuang Yang, Jingyan Song, Bingjie Lu, Yuan Gao, Yongqi Chen, Jiawei Shi, Luis A. J. Mur, Lejun Yu, Jie Luo and Wanneng Yang
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:55
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Prioritizing wild relative diversity for improving crop adaptation to emerging drought-prone environments is challenging. Here, we combine the genome-wide environmental scans (GWES) in wheat diploid ancestor Aegi...

    Authors: Moses Nyine, Dwight Davidson, Elina Adhikari, Marshall Clinesmith, Huan Wang, Alina Akhunova, Allan Fritz and Eduard Akhunov
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:35
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Fruit acidity and color are important quality attributes in peaches. Although there are some exceptions, blood-fleshed peaches typically have a sour taste. However, little is known about the genetic variations...

    Authors: Wenbo Chen, Qi Xie, Jia Fu, Shaojia Li, Yanna Shi, Jiao Lu, Yuanyuan Zhang, Yingjie Zhao, Ruijuan Ma, Baijun Li, Bo Zhang, Donald Grierson, Mingliang Yu, Zhangjun Fei and Kunsong Chen
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:7
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. Base editing is a powerful tool for artificial evolution to create allelic diversity and improve agronomic traits. However, the great evolutionary potential for every sgRNA target has been overlooked. And ther...

    Authors: Xiang Wang, Wenbo Pan, Chao Sun, Hong Yang, Zhentao Cheng, Fei Yan, Guojing Ma, Yun Shang, Rui Zhang, Caixia Gao, Lijing Liu and Huawei Zhang
    Citation: Genome Biology 2024 25:215
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles, Method, Short Report, Review, and Database Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. 

To submit your manuscript to this Collection, please use our online submission system and indicate in your covering letter that you would like the article to be considered for inclusion in the "Genomics for crop improvement" Collection.

All articles submitted to Collections are peer reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. 

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor or Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.