Kumari Manisha, Zinta Gaurav, Chauhan Ramesh, Kumar Ashok, Singh Sanatsujat, Singh Satbeer
Division of Agrotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Division of Biotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Front Nutr. 2023 Jul 24;10:1129723. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1129723. eCollection 2023.
Nowadays, the human population is more concerned about their diet and very specific in choosing their food sources to ensure a healthy lifestyle and avoid diseases. So people are shifting to more smart nutritious food choices other than regular cereals and staple foods they have been eating for a long time. Pseudocereals, especially, amaranth and quinoa, are important alternatives to traditional cereals due to comparatively higher nutrition, essential minerals, amino acids, and zero gluten. Both Amaranchaceae crops are low-input demanding and hardy plants tolerant to stress, drought, and salinity conditions. Thus, these crops may benefit developing countries that follow subsistence agriculture and have limited farming resources. However, these are underutilized orphan crops, and the efforts to improve them by reducing their saponin content remain ignored for a long time. Furthermore, these crops have very rich variability, but the progress of their genetic gain for getting high-yielding genotypes is slow. Realizing problems in traditional cereals and opting for crop diversification to tackle climate change, research should be focused on the genetic improvement for low saponin, nutritionally rich, tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses, location-specific photoperiod, and high yielding varietal development of amaranth and quinoa to expand their commercial cultivation. The latest technologies that can accelerate the breeding to improve yield and quality in these crops are much behind and slower than the already established major crops of the world. We could learn from past mistakes and utilize the latest trends such as CRISPR/Cas, TILLING, and RNA interference (RNAi) technology to improve these pseudocereals genetically. Hence, the study reviewed important nutrition quality traits, morphological descriptors, their breeding behavior, available genetic resources, and breeding approaches for these crops to shed light on future breeding strategies to develop superior genotypes.
如今，人们越来越关注自己的饮食，在选择食物来源时非常挑剔，以确保健康的生活方式并避免疾病。因此，人们正在转向更明智的营养食物选择，而不再局限于长期以来食用的常规谷物和主食。特别是伪谷物，如苋属植物和藜麦，由于其相对较高的营养、必需矿物质、氨基酸以及零麸质含量，成为传统谷物的重要替代品。这两种苋科作物对投入要求较低，是耐胁迫、耐旱和耐盐的耐寒植物。因此，这些作物可能会使那些从事自给农业且农业资源有限的发展中国家受益。然而，这些作物是未得到充分利用的小众作物，长期以来，通过降低其皂苷含量来改良它们的努力一直被忽视。此外，这些作物具有非常丰富的变异性，但培育高产基因型的遗传增益进展缓慢。意识到传统谷物存在的问题，并选择作物多样化来应对气候变化，研究应聚焦于苋属植物和藜麦的低皂苷、营养丰富、耐生物和非生物胁迫、适应特定地点光周期以及高产品种的遗传改良，以扩大其商业种植。能够加速这些作物育种以提高产量和品质的最新技术，比世界上已成熟的主要作物的相关技术要落后得多且发展缓慢。我们可以吸取过去的教训，利用诸如CRISPR/Cas、定向诱导基因组局部突变（TILLING）和RNA干扰（RNAi）技术等最新趋势，对这些伪谷物进行基因改良。因此，本研究综述了这些作物的重要营养品质性状、形态学描述符、它们的育种行为、可用的遗传资源以及育种方法，以阐明未来培育优良基因型的育种策略。
