Principal aims
In the Laboratory of Genetics, research activities are developed to implement strategies and methodologies of conventional and advanced breeding to improve agricultural and forestry production. In particular, the lab activities focused on horticultural species (eggplant, tomato and garden asparagus), grain legumes (lentil and bean) and fruit (grapevine and olive). The skills are related to genetics and plant breeding methods, the recent development of new technologies (molecular markers, genomics and proteomics) has allowed to develop integrated methods to speed up the time of conventional genetic improvement.
Research activities
The research activities can be summarized as follows:
- development of technologies to develop improved genotypes using plant regeneration and transformation techniques in different herbaceous plants to introduce genes of interest also thanks to somatic hybridization and interspecific hybridization;
- development of molecular markers to support plant breeding: development of classes of molecular markers on different horticultural species for the development of assisted breeding programs; in particular, AFLP, SSR and SNP markers were used for the selection of progeny tolerant to fungal pathogens in eggplant and asparagus;
- use of molecular markers for the genetic characterization of germplasm collections of species of interest in the Mediterranean area; enhancement of the native germplasm in plant breeding programs;
- sequencing and isolation of new classes of molecular markers (eg SNP in asparagus) and a line of research focused on gene expression studies on specific biosynthetic pathways (in collaboration with the plant physiology group of the Department a research was developed on mineral nutritional, with particular reference to nitrogen).
International relationships
The Laboratory also developed research collaborations with other Italian research Institution (University, CNR and Ente CREA - Ministry of Agriculture) and international (University of Georgia - USA, Bejing Genomic Institut - China, John Innes, Norwich - UK; Universidad Politecnica of Valencia - Spain; INRA Montepellier - France).
Horizon 2020 topics
- Agriculture & Forestry - Bio-based Industries - Environment & Climate Action
Smart Specialisation Strategy Calabria (S3 Calabria)
Agroalimentare / Food Farming
Ambiente e rischi naturali / Environment and natural risks
Scienze della vita / Life Science
| Francesco Sunseri |
Genetic maps, introgression and phylogeny, gene expression |
LS2_1 - Genomics, comparative genomics, functional genomics |
| Francesco Sunseri |
Study of quantitative traits, Molecular Markers and QTL, Association Mapping |
LS2_7 - Quantitative genetics |
| Francesco Sunseri |
Exploitation of plant genetic resources, Germplasm bank database, Core collection |
LS8_4 - Biodiversity, comparative biology |
| Francesco Sunseri |
Molecular Assisted Selection |
LS9_5 - Agriculture related to crop production, soil biology and cultivation, applied plant biology |
