Predictive breeding doubles medicinal compounds in a healing herb
Kinoshita S, Sakurai K, Tsusaka T, Sakurai M, Shirasawa K, Isobe S, Iwata H.
Medicinal Plants
The red-leaved shiso in your herb garden, prized for cooking and traditional remedies, could soon come in far more potent varieties thanks to breeding methods that don't require decades of trial and error.
Breeders normally have to grow plants for years and run expensive lab tests to find which ones have the best medicinal properties. Here, researchers used genetic data to predict which parent plants would produce the best offspring before ever crossing them, then tested it for real on red perilla, a shiso-like herb used in traditional medicine. The best plants that came out of these predicted crosses had almost twice the levels of two prized healing compounds compared to a popular existing variety.
Key Findings
Genomic selection-guided crosses produced second-generation (G2) perilla plants with high levels of perillaldehyde and rosmarinic acid, two key medicinal compounds
The top individual plant from these crosses showed nearly twofold higher levels of the two target compounds compared to the established cultivar 'Sekiho'
The approach used predicted additive genotypic values of potential offspring to select which crosses to make, prioritizing genetic variation rather than just parent performance
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists used genomic prediction to pick which perilla plants to crossbreed, and the resulting offspring produced nearly double the medicinal compound levels of an existing commercial variety, showing that smart breeding can unlock hidden potential in overlooked medicinal plants.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Progeny-based genomic selection reveals untapped genetic potential in an underutilized medicinal plant, <i>Perilla frutescens</i>.
Despite their substantial therapeutic value, medicinal plants have undergone limited genetic improvement through breeding because of the scarcity of expert breeders. Moreover, quantifying bioactive...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Perilla frutescens var. crispa, also known by its Japanese name shiso (紫蘇) from Chinese zisu, is a cultigen of Perilla frutescens, a herb in the mint family Lamiaceae. It is native to the mountainous regions of China and India, but is now found worldwide. The plant occurs in several forms, as def...