"Phenom Networks" - A System for Complex Phenotype Analysis in Breeding.

Resolving natural phenotypic variation into genetic and molecular components is a major objective in biology. Over the past decade, tomato interspecific introgression lines (ILs), each carrying a single 'exotic' chromosome segment from a wild species, have exposed thousands of quantitative trait loci (QTL) affecting plant adaptation, morphology, yield, metabolism, and gene expression. QTL for fruit size and sugar composition were isolated by map-based cloning, while others were successfully implemented in marker-assisted breeding programs. Our challenge is to integrate the multitude of IL-QTL in plants, and congenics in animals, into a single Phenom Networks database which is imperative as the great majority of the raw QTL data is not uploaded into existing databases. Phenom Networks is a web-based system that implements statistical methods and algorithms to analyze phenotypic data and provides interactive graphical and statistical outputs. Such an integrated phenomic database will unravel some unifying principles about the architecture of complex traits and pave the road for genomics assisted breeding.