Future Perspectives

In 2013, kiwifruit joined the list of sequenced plant genomes. Its sequence is now a valuable tool for scientists working in different fields, from taxonomy to plant breeding and physiology. As kiwifruit is dioecious and therefore highly heterozygous, scientists encountered severe difficulties in correctly assembling the contigs and, as time goes by, the scaffolding appears incorrect in many positions. The dense maps produced through a genotyping-by-sequencing approach after the genome sequence was published are helping to consolidate the assembly of ‘Hongyang,’ the diploid A. chinensis var. chinensis cultivar selected by the Chinese scientists for their sequencing project. Moreover, the new effort of sequencing the Red5 genotype made by the New Zealand scientists, supported by a multinational initiative that will take care of gene prediction and annotation, will provide a better kiwifruit genome assembly and annotation. Many other genotypes of both A. chinensis and its wild relatives are in the waiting list, and as soon as they are sequenced, they will contribute to an uncovering of the genetic diversity of the genus. Taxonomists will benefit from this, but it will benefit even more breeders, who can exploit sets of dense markers evenly distributed along the whole genome and apply the so-called genome selection, selection based on the molecular profiles of genotypes and no longer based on the extensive and time-consuming phenotypic evaluation of traits, the objects of selection.