Author(s)

Essubalew Getachew Seyum^1,2,3*, Ngalle Hermine Bille¹, Wosene Gebreselassie Abtew³, Godswill Ntsomboh-Ntsefong^1,4, Joseph Martin Bell¹

¹Department of Plant Biology and Physiology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon.
²CETIC (African Center of Excellence in Information and Communication Technologies), University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon.
³Department of Horticulture and Plant Sciences, Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Jimma, Ethiopia.
⁴Institute of Agricultural Research for Development, Yaounde, Cameroon.

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is one of the major cultivated crops among the economically important palm species. It is cultivated mainly for its edible oil. For a perennial crop like oil palm, the use of Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) techniques helps to reduce the breeding cycle and improve the economic products. Genetic and physical maps are important for sequencing experiments since they show the exact positions of genes and other distinctive features in the chromosomal DNA. This review focuses on the role of genome mapping in oil palm breeding. It assesses the role of genome mapping in oil palm breeding and discusses the major factors affecting such mapping. Generating a high-density map governed by several factors, for instance, marker type, marker density, number of mapped population, and software used are the major issues treated. The general conclusion is that genome mapping is pivotal in the construction of a genetic linkage map. It helps to detect QTL and identify genes that control quantitative traits in oil palm. In perspective, the use of high-density molecular markers with a large number of markers, a large number mapping population, and up-to-date software is necessary for oil palm genome mapping.

Genome Mapping, Crop Improvement, Marker Assisted Selection, Oil Palm, Biotechnology

Seyum, E. , Bille, N. , Abtew, W. , Ntsomboh-Ntsefong, G. and Bell, J. (2021) Genome Mapping to Enhance Efficient Marker-Assisted Selection and Breeding of the Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.). Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology, 12, 407-425. doi: 10.4236/abb.2021.1212026.