Advancements in Lentil Genomics for Enhanced Crop Breeding: A Review

Abstract

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) is an essential pulse crop that is widely grown for its high nutritional value, notably its high protein content, making it an important dietary component for vegetarians and vegans. Despite being the world's fifth most produced pulse, with large contributions from Canada and India, lentil production confronts obstacles such as poor productivity due to limited genetic improvement against biotic and abiotic stresses under rainfed cultivation conditions. Recent advances in lentil genetics and genomics, such as the discovery of genes related to yield, disease resistance, and nutritional content, have boosted breeding efforts to generate improved lentil varieties. The use of contemporary genomic techniques like molecular markers, marker-assisted selection (MAS), genomic selection (GS), and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology has sped up the discovery of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and the production of novel cultivars with superior agronomic characteristics. Databases such as NCBI and ENA, as well as specialized resources like KnowPulse, provide critical genomic data, while the creation of lentil genome assemblies, notably the CDC Redberry variety, has improved our understanding of lentil genetics. These resources help to solve the constraints of traditional breeding, particularly for complex characteristics impacted by genotype-environment interactions, opening the way for more robust and productive lentil varieties. Although the application of advanced tools such as genetic engineering, cisgenesis, and genome editing has moved more slowly in lentils than in other crops, their potential to improve lentil output is encouraging. Recent studies on lentil genomes, together with the creation of increased genetic resources and cutting-edge techniques, offer the ability to overcome production constraints and dramatically increase lentil production and quality throughout the world.