Genomics-Assisted Breeding for Tomato Fruit Quality in the Next-Generation Omics Age

This chapter focuses mainly on the use of new “omics” technology and its potential use for tomato breeding, in particular for improving fruit quality. With the dawn of the genomics and next-generation sequencing ages, the role of genomic tools in applied tomato breeding is changing. The tomato genome has been sequenced and the information is freely available. Genomic and transcriptomic resources and bioinformatic methods have become available, metabolomic methods have been established, segregating populations have been analyzed for alterations in key metabolic traits on an “omic” scale, and large, multi-faceted omics databases have been constructed. Mutagenized populations have been developed for use in targeting induced local lesions in genome (TILLING) approaches, and the bioinformatic workflows to handle high-throughput identification of mutations in candidate genes have been published. Thus, the pillars now exist upon which a genomics-assisted breeding scheme could be devised for tomato.