Editorial: Functional Genomics in Fruit Trees: From 'Omics to Sustainable Biotechnologies

"Fruit trees are economically important species and, as long-living plants, represent an importantchallenge to understand adaptation to environmental stresses. Detailed functional analyses areoften difficult in woody species, because of their biological features and the recalcitrance ofsome species to plant transformation and/or regeneration, impediments that greatly limit theuse of standard genetic and biotechnological approaches for functional genomics studies orplant breeding.Specifically, fruit tree species are difficult to study at genetic and molecular levels (1) becauseof their perennial nature, (2) the limited information on gene identity and function, and geneticmarkers directly associated to the control of a character, (3) the unavailability of well-definedmolecular genetic linkage maps and (4) the poor development of mapping population andmap-based studies, that are generally rather complex in woody plants.Over the last decade, the sequencing of several genomes, coupled with rapid advances inbioinformatics, provided powerful tools for detailed molecular studies on crop plants otherthan traditional model species. The availability of sequencing data is only a starting point sincebioinformatics approaches are not sufficient to define gene roles. To deepen this knowledge, it isnecessary to understand how thousands of genes can interact each other to define the structure of aplant and how the metabolic pathways in which they are involved contribute to plant developmentand adaptation to the environment."