Hu Hongliang, Yuan Xingxing, Saini Dinesh Kumar, Yang Tao, Wu Xinyi, Wu Ranran, Liu Zehao, Jan Farkhandah, Mir Reyazul Rouf, Liu Liu, Miao Jiashun, Liu Na, Xu Pei
Zhejiang-Israel Joint Laboratory for Plant Metrology and Equipment Innovation, College of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
Institute of Industrial Crops, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China.
Hortic Res. 2025 Mar 18;12(7):uhaf091. doi: 10.1093/hr/uhaf091. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Food legume crops, including common bean, faba bean, mungbean, cowpea, chickpea, and pea, have long served as vital sources of energy, protein, and minerals worldwide, both as grains and vegetables. Advancements in high-throughput phenotyping, next-generation sequencing, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have significantly expanded genomic resources for food legumes, ushering research into the panomics era. Despite their nutritional and agronomic importance, food legumes still face constraints in yield potential and genetic improvement due to limited genomic resources, complex inheritance patterns, and insufficient exploration of key traits, such as quality and stress resistance. This highlights the need for continued efforts to comprehensively dissect the phenome, genome, and regulome of these crops. This review summarizes recent advances in technological innovations and multi-omics applications in food legumes research and improvement. Given the critical role of germplasm resources and the challenges in applying phenomics to food legumes-such as complex trait architecture and limited standardized methodologies-we first address these foundational areas. We then discuss recent gene discoveries associated with yield stability, seed composition, and stress tolerance and their potential as breeding targets. Considering the growing role of genetic engineering, we provide an update on gene-editing applications in legumes, particularly CRISPR-based approaches for trait enhancement. We advocate for integrating chemical and biochemical signatures of cells ('molecular phenomics') with genetic mapping to accelerate gene discovery. We anticipate that combining panomics approaches with advanced breeding technologies will accelerate genetic gains in food legumes, enhancing their productivity, resilience, and contribution to sustainable global food security.
食用豆类作物，包括菜豆、蚕豆、绿豆、豇豆、鹰嘴豆和豌豆，长期以来一直是全球重要的能量、蛋白质和矿物质来源，既作为谷物，也作为蔬菜。高通量表型分析、下一代测序、转录组学、蛋白质组学和代谢组学的进步显著扩展了食用豆类的基因组资源，将研究带入了泛组学时代。尽管食用豆类在营养和农艺方面具有重要意义，但由于基因组资源有限、遗传模式复杂以及对品质和抗逆性等关键性状的探索不足，它们在产量潜力和遗传改良方面仍面临限制。这凸显了持续努力全面剖析这些作物的表型组、基因组和调控组的必要性。本综述总结了食用豆类研究与改良中技术创新和多组学应用的最新进展。鉴于种质资源的关键作用以及将表型组学应用于食用豆类所面临的挑战，如复杂的性状结构和有限的标准化方法，我们首先探讨这些基础领域。然后，我们讨论了与产量稳定性、种子成分和胁迫耐受性相关的最新基因发现及其作为育种目标的潜力。考虑到基因工程的作用日益增强，我们提供了豆类基因编辑应用的最新情况，特别是基于CRISPR的性状改良方法。我们主张将细胞的化学和生化特征（“分子表型组学”）与遗传图谱相结合，以加速基因发现。我们预计，将泛组学方法与先进的育种技术相结合，将加速食用豆类的遗传增益，提高其生产力、恢复力以及对全球可持续粮食安全的贡献。
