Recent advances in pomegranate genomics: Status and prospects

Pomegranate is an economically important perennial crop with high nutritional, medicinal, and ornamental importance. Owing to its ability to sustain harsh environment with limited water requirements, it remains an excellent remunerative and strategic fruit crop to alleviate the livelihood of farmers. Globally, India is the leading pomegranate-producing country but witnessed limited productivity over the periods due to many biotic/abiotic constraints. The increasing demand in the international market has widened the scope for earning higher dividends from this crop. Therefore, genomics-assisted breeding may play a vital role for its genetic improvement. Recently, wealth of genetic and genomic resources has been developed through deployment of advanced next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. The existing genomic resources include draft/reference genome assemblies, transcriptome assemblies, genetic markers, and few genetic linkage maps that pave the way to initiate genomics-assisted breeding in pomegranate. Full potential of these genomic resources is yet to be realized through mapping gene(s)/QTLs and candidate genes for many economic traits. Currently, various molecular markers such as genome-wide simple sequence repeats (SSRs), expressed tag-derived SSRs (EST-SSRs), micro-RNA-based SSRs (miRNA-SSRs), and single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) markers have been developed and validated in a panel of diverse pomegranate genotypes. This chapter covers the recent progress made in pomegranate genomics and highlights their vital role in designing future breeding strategies.