作物杂种优势研究现状与展望

Advances and perspectives in crop heterosis

杂种优势是指F1杂交后代在产量、适应性等方面的表现优于双亲的现象.该现象广泛存在于植物中,也被较多地应用于作物育种.尽管杂种优势的提出和应用已经超过一个世纪,但其具体的分子机理仍不够清晰.为解释杂种优势的遗传基础,目前存在三个被广泛接受的假说,即显性互补假说、超显性假说以及上位效应.此外,杂种优势位点的鉴定以及杂种优势相关基因和表观调控的研究为阐明其分子机理积累了丰富的数据和线索.随着各种组学、基因编辑技术以及大数据分析、机器学习等的快速发展,杂种优势的基础研究及应用将有望获得实质性的进展.本文对杂种优势的研究进展进行了综述和展望,并针对我国杂种优势研究和应用面临的瓶颈给出了相应的对策,同时对我国杂交作物育种研究进行了短期及中长期的战略布局.

Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, refers to the phenomenon that F1 hybrids show superior performance over their parents on traits like yield,adaptation, etc. This common phenomenon in plants has gained a wide range of applications in hybrid breeding. Although heterosis has been proposed and utilized for more than a century, the molecular network and underlying mechanism of it remain unclear. There are three major hypotheses which explain the genetic basis of heterosis: dominance complementation, over-dominance and epistasis.The identification of heterotic loci and the elucidation of the gene network and epigenetic regulation lead to a better understanding of heterosis. With the fast growth of multiple omics, genome editing, big data analytics and machine learning, the research on heterosis may gain substantial progress in future. Here we review the recent advances in heterosis and aim to shed light on future research. We also provide potential solutions to overcome the bottlenecks in heterosis research and application, as well as the strategies of hybrid breeding in China in the short, medium, and long term.