A Review of Molecular Makers Applied in Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) Breeding

In recent years, with the rapid development of molecular biology, molecular markers have been widely used in genetic breeding of various crops including cowpea. However, molecular researches in cowpea are lack of systematic summary. This review presents an overview of accomplishments on different aspects of molecular markers in cowpea genetic breeding, such as genetic diversity analysis, genetic linkage map construction, QTL mapping, etc. Furthermore, it provides the discussion of some existing problems about molecular markers applied in cowpea breeding and the prospect of the future development. The authors find that SSR is the most frequently used molecular marker, while SNP has not been used in the genetic diversity analysis of cowpea. And the authors also conclude that more QTL of cowpea should be located and more molecular markers linked to resistance gene should be found. This will be useful for scientists and breeders to research cowpea with the aid of molecular markers, thus accelerating improvement of cowpea varieties.