Integrating Breeding and Biotech for Improving Strawberry Nutritional Quality

Traditional breeding approaches are based on the identification of most suitable genetic resources either from cultivated and wild germplasm to be used in cross combination, and selection programs aiming to identify new cultivars combining appropriate agronomic traits with improved fruit nutritional quality. Starting from wild germplasm, progenies from strawberry crosses having F. virginiana glauca (FVG) as a common parent showed a significant increase in their fruit quality and nutritional features confirming the use of the wild species to improve cultivated strawberry for several characters. However, commercial cultivars of F. x ananassa already perform well, due to the combination of important agronomic traits with improved fruit nutritional quality. A considerable number of molecular studies have targeted strawberry concerning gene cloning, genetic transformation, fingerprinting and mapping for important agronomic traits such as plant habitus, disease resistance and fruit nutritional quality. Meanwhile, the completion of the diploid strawberry genome sequence promises to accelerate candidate-gene approaches for marker discovery. In addition, these achievements are expanding the potential applications of DNA recombinant technology for the transfer and validation of target genes controlling important traits, including fruit nutritional quality. The major limitation of GMO technology in strawberry is the lack of public acceptance. To overcome this problem, a particular attention should be given to the safety issues in all steps of GMO preparation and evaluation. Validation of the health values of new strawberry cultivars bearing fruits with improved contents of bioactive compounds is nowaday the major challenge in order to be able to market a new fresh fruit for the effect on consumer health.