Exploring the Potential of Genetic Diversity via Proteomics: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives for Banana

KU Leuven is hosting the Global Collection of banana (Musa spp.) managed by Bioversity International for safe storage and distribution. Our mandate is to secure the crop’s gene pool and encourage its use. The latter, however, requires an in-depth knowledge of the variability among the varieties and their potential. Most edible varieties are sterile and triploid involving the parental A genome of Musa acuminata and/or the parental B genome of Musa balbisiana, with hybrid genomes (AAA, AAB or ABB). A very efficient way of characterising the genetic diversity in search of interesting traits is analysing the different genomes via next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. However, population-based associations to the genome are challenging in banana and need to fall back on crossing fertile inedible diploids. Moreover, proteins and metabolites are the main determinants of a trait/phenotype and finding correlations between the genome or transcriptome and a phenotype can be quite challenging. Therefore, proteomics is quite complementary to characterize the biodiversity and find correlations between a phenotype and the genotype. To characterize and evaluate Musa varieties belonging to different genomic groups and exploring their potential, we have been optimizing proteomics techniques over the years. This chapter gives a brief overview of what proteomics is, its challenges and recent improvements, and applications of proteomics approaches used in banana research.