Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur, 1706, Bangladesh.
World Vegetable Center, P.O. Box 42, Shanhua, Tainan, 74199, Taiwan.
Plant Physiol Biochem. 2022 Jul 1;182:104-123. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2022.04.011. Epub 2022 Apr 14.
Climate change causes environmental variation worldwide, which is one of the most serious threats to global food security. In addition, more than 2 billion people in the world are reported to suffer from serious malnutrition, referred to as 'hidden hunger.' Dependence on only a few crops could lead to the loss of genetic diversity and high fragility of crop breeding in systems adapting to global scale climate change. The exploitation of underutilized species and genetic resources, referred to as orphan crops, could be a useful approach for resolving the issue of adaptability to environmental alteration, biodiversity preservation, and improvement of nutrient quality and quantity to ensure food security. Moreover, the use of these alternative crops will help to increase the human health benefits and the income of farmers in developing countries. In this review, we highlight the potential of orphan crops, especially amaranths, for use as vegetables and health-promoting nutritional components. This review highlights promising diversified sources of amaranth germplasms, their tolerance to abiotic stresses, and their nutritional, phytochemical, and antioxidant values for vegetable purposes. Betalains (betacyanins and betaxanthins), unique antioxidant components in amaranth vegetables, are also highlighted regarding their chemodiversity across amaranth germplasms and their stability and degradation. In addition, we discuss the physiological functions, antioxidant, antilipidemic, anticancer, and antimicrobial activities, as well as the biosynthesis pathway, molecular, biochemical, genetics, and genomic mechanisms of betalains in detail.
气候变化导致全球环境变化，这是全球粮食安全面临的最严重威胁之一。此外，据报道，世界上有超过 20 亿人患有严重的营养不良，被称为“隐性饥饿”。仅依赖少数几种作物可能导致遗传多样性的丧失和适应全球气候变化规模的作物繁殖系统的高度脆弱性。开发被称为“孤儿作物”的未充分利用的物种和遗传资源可能是解决适应环境变化、生物多样性保护以及提高营养质量和数量以确保粮食安全问题的有效方法。此外，这些替代作物的利用将有助于增加发展中国家农民的健康效益和收入。在这篇综述中，我们强调了孤儿作物（特别是苋属植物）作为蔬菜和促进健康的营养成分的潜力。本文综述了苋属植物种质资源的潜在多样化来源，以及它们对非生物胁迫的耐受性，以及它们作为蔬菜的营养价值、植物化学和抗氧化价值。在苋属蔬菜中独特的抗氧化成分甜菜红素（甜菜红素和甜菜黄素）也因其在苋属种质资源中的化学多样性及其稳定性和降解而受到关注。此外，我们详细讨论了甜菜红素的生理功能、抗氧化、抗脂、抗癌和抗菌活性，以及甜菜红素的生物合成途径、分子、生化、遗传学和基因组机制。
