LAUSR

Introduction of modern tools and techniques into crop breeding and genetics are necessary to meet the growing demand for food and extreme environmental changes. Traditionally, breeding and genetic mapping of agronomically important traits rely on bi-parental and double haploid populations. However, these types of populations offer low allelic variation and limited mapping resolution. In order to address these limitations, multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) populations have been developed for high resolution genetic mapping. As compared to bi-parental crosses, MAGIC offers a much wider allelic variation, thereby allowing a higher resolution mapping of complex quantitative traits, and it has been successfully applied in several crop species. With recent advances in DNA sequencing technology, a large amounts of sequence data can be amassed in a shorter timeframe and at a reasonable cost. However, utilization of these sequence data has been a common bottleneck, both in breeding and genetics, especially for complex genomes of multi-parent populations. This review summarizes the advantages that MAGIC offers in genetic mapping of genes and QTL associated with biotic and abiotic stress resistance, and economically important agronomic traits. It also highlights the trends in genotyping, phenotyping, and data analysis of MAGIC populations in different crops. To provide a balanced overview, it also discusses major challenges and limitations in the development and utilization of MAGIC populations.