Techniques and advantages of microspore culture for crop improvement

Microspore culture is an efficient and widely used technology in plant breeding for the production of haploid and (DH) plants that are widely used in fast-tracking crop improvement. This technique consists of steps of culturing microspores or immature pollen grains and inducing haploid embryos that generate viable plants that are doubled in chromosomes resulting in homozygosity across all loci. The DH lines are highly effective in shortening the genetic improvement timeline of many crops and are frequently used in hybrid development and analysis of complex traits. Microspore culture also provides new resources for breeding through spontaneous mutations and somaclonal variations. These variations can be used to create new characters, which are desirable for breeding crops’ disease resistance and stress tolerance. Also, the technique can be used for the preservation of genetic resources and as an excellent tool for genome manipulation through efficient and accurate introduction of desirable traits into the target crop plants. However, the use of microspore culture is hampered in many crops by species-specific success rates and genetic instability during in vitro culture. Current research aims to optimize protocols across a broader range of crops and integrate microspore culture with emerging technologies such as high-throughput phenotyping and bioinformatics to improve its efficiency and expand its use.