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Acta Agron Sin ›› 2015, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (02): 175-186.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1006.2015.00175

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Analysis of Concepts and Categories of Plant Phenome and Phenomics

PAN Ying-Hong   

  1. Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences / National Key Facility for Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
  • Received:2014-06-13 Revised:2014-11-05 Online:2015-02-12 Published:2014-11-18

Abstract:

Plant phenotyping is a key link in understanding gene function and environmental effects, and with development of plant function genomics and crop molecular breeding, the traditional phenotypic observation has become the main bottleneck. High-throughput plant phenome analysis technology and plant phenomics study is an effective way to solve this problem. Although plant phenome analysis is becoming a hot spot at home and abroad, relevant concepts are still relatively fuzzy, and this situation hinders the development of this emerging discipline. In this paper, the relevant concepts and categories of plant phenome and plant phenomics were analyzed, and the new concepts such as quasi-phenome, identifiable traits, mapped traits, and tolerance of plant phenotype to the changes of inheritance and environment, were introduced. And, plant phenome was defined as “all of physical, physiological and biochemical characteristics and traits which are decided or influenced by genome and environments, and can reflect the plant structures and compositions, or reflect the processes and results of plant growth and development”, and plant phenomics as “the comprehensive controls, complete collections and systematic analyses of plant phenome informations and related environmental parameters”. The scopes, directions, and top design principles of plant phenomics research, were also discussed.

Key words: Phenome, Phenomics, Plant, Concept, Category

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