Genomic Selection. II. Latest Trends and Future Trajectories

Agriculture is an essential component of the evolution of mankind. Environmental changes, human population growth, and increasing global demand for animal and vegetable food products have led to an urgent need for optimization of food production. Genomic selection is one of the most promising and safest methods for improving the genetic qualities of farm animals and plants. Genomic selection is based on the principle of using information from a large number of genetic markers distributed throughout the genome and serves to identify such diversity in this genome that is sufficient enough to predict breeding values without knowing exactly where specific genes are located. However, the effectiveness of genomic selection has currently reached a certain limit. In addition, it can be applied only within industrial breeds of animals and plant lines. The review discusses the ways to increase the effectiveness and fields of application for genomic selection, in particular, by implementing technologies from related sciences.