Conversion and Validation of Uniplex SNP Markers for Selection of Resistance to Cassava Mosaic Disease in Cassava Breeding Programs

Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) is a major viral adversely affecting cassava production in Africa and Asia. Genomic regions conferring resistance to the have been mapped African germplasm through biparental quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping genome-wide association studies. To facilitate utilization of these markers breeding pipelines support selections, proof-of-concept technical biological validation research was carried out using independent pre-breeding populations. Kompetitive Allele-Specific Polymerase Chain Reaction (KASP) assays were designed from three single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) linked locus on chromosome 12 (S12_7926132, S12_7926163) minor 14 (S14_4626854). The robust easy score with >99% genotype call rate. overall predictive accuracy (proportion true positives negatives) (S12_7926132 S14_4626854) 0.80 0.78 population, respectively. On average, genotypes that at least one copy resistant allele CMD2 had significantly higher yield advantage. Nevertheless, variation observed prediction accuracies for (S12_7926132) among sub-families two populations, suggesting need context-specific utilization, example, by screening co-segregation favorable SNP alleles parents being used crosses. Availability validated uniplex KASP genotyping platform represents an important step translational genetics toward marker-assisted selection accelerate introgression