优质、多抗、抗逆和高产作物新品种的选育和推广是实现我国粮食安全的重要途径。目前大多数育种工作仍然建立在表型选择和育种家的经验之上，育种效率低下；另一方面，生物信息数据库积累的数据量极其庞大，由于缺乏必要的数据整合技术，可资育种工作者利用的信息却非常有限。作物分子设计育种将在多层次水平上研究植物体所有成分的网络互作行为和在生长发育过程中对环境反应的动力学行为；继而使用各种“组学”数据，在计算机平台上对植物体的生长、发育和对外界反应行为进行预测；然后根据具体育种目标，构建品种设计的蓝图；最终结合育种实践培育出符合设计要求的农作物新品种。设计育种的核心是建立以分子设计为目标的育种理论和技术体系，通过各种技术的集成与整合，对生物体从基因（分子）到整体（系统）不同层次进行设计和操作，在实验室对育种程序中的各种因素进行模拟、筛选和优化，提出最佳的亲本选配和后代选择策略，实现从传统的“经验育种”到定向、高效的“精确育种”的转化，以大幅度提高育种效率。
Breeding and extension of new cultivars with good qualities, multiple resistances, stress tolerances, and high yielding are essential to fulfill the food safety in China. However, most crop breeding activities are still based on visual and phenotypic selection, where the breeder’s experience plays a major role, and the breeding efficiency is extremely low. On the other hand, a large amount of biological data keeps accumulating dramatically as the rapid development in biotechnology and genomics. But the breeders have no ideas how to integrate this information in their traditional breeding programs due to the lack of appropriate tools and methods. Molecular design breeding first studies the dynamitic behaviors from multiple levels among all components consisting of a plant, and their interactions with environments during development. And then a blueprint of specific cultivars meeting particular breeding objectives is designed, and the optimum strategy to reach the blueprint is provided. Therefore, by understanding the genetic basis of all agronomically important traits and the allelic variation at those loci, the breeders would be able to design superior genotypes at their requirements ‘in silico’. By design breeding, the crossing and selection process can be simulated and optimized before going to the field, and thus the breeding efficiency can be greatly enhanced by shifting the tradition experience breeding to the precision breeding.
全 文 ：