Assistant Professor Malay Saha

Malay Saha, Ph.D

Assistant Professor

Noble Researcher since 2004

mcsaha@noble.org

Molecular Markers Lab

Ph.D., Plant Sciences, 2002, North Dakota State University

Research emphasis: molecular markers

The forage grass genomics and small grain breeding program is focused on developing genomics tools and information for grasses and small grain cultivars for the southern Great Plains. Molecular markers have been used widely for cultivar fingerprinting, genetic diversity assessment, molecular mapping and marker-assisted selection. Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) have become a marker class of choice. Saha's lab developed 157 SSR primer pairs from the first 20,000 tall fescue ESTs. They also developed 511 SSR primer pairs from (GA/CT) enriched tall fescue genomic libraries. Tall fescue primer pairs were screened against a variety of grass species of the Poaceae family. These were found to be potenially useful markers for comparative genomics among grass species.

The first PCR-based genetic linkage map of tall fescue has been constructed with amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and SSR markers. The integrated map covers 1,841 cM on 17 linkage groups (LG) with an average of 54 loci per LG and has an average marker density of 2.0 cM per marker. In a collaborative effort, Saha's lab also mapped some of these markers to a ryegrass genetic linkage map.

Several small grains crops are very important in the southern Great Plains. The lab's crop priority list will be rye, triticale, wheat and oat. Dry and hot weather during planting, cold temperature at growth, and low soil pH are the major limitations for small grains. The target is to develop cultivars resistant to the above-mentioned stresses. Molecular genetic techniques, along with the traditional plant-breeding methods, will be applied for the genetic improved of small grain cultivars.