Genomic Resource Generation in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Abstract

Plant genomic resources are genetic material of actual or potential value which can be utilized for the improvement of specific traits in Agri-horticultural crops. The generation of genomic resource in medicinal plants is important because they contain bioactive compounds or secondary metabolites important for human health. The demand for these compounds is increasing due to their application in herbal medicine. The recent “omics” techniques have made generation of genomic resources much efficient and cost effective. The improvement in sequencing technology from 2 nd generation (NGS) to 3 rd generation has reduced sequencing cost and thus brought many more crop genomes within range of analysis. The Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) based whole genome and transcriptome sequencing in medicinal and aromatic plant has played a vital role in generating genomic resources for effective conservation, crop improvement and better understanding about secondary metabolite biosynthesis in medicinal and aromatic plants. In present review, the progress of generating genomic resources such SSR resources, EST-SSR resources, transcription factors, transcriptome analysis, and whole genome sequence analysis in selected medicinal and aromatic plants has been updated, which may be further utilize in medicinal and aromatic plant improvement programs.