Nutritionally Enhanced Staple Food Crops

Crop biofortification is a sustainable and cost-effective strategy to address malnutrition in developing countries. This review synthesizes the progress toward developing seed micronutrient-dense cereals and legumes cultivars by exploiting natural genetic variation using conventional breeding and/or transgenic technology, and discusses the associated issues to strengthen crop biofortification research and development. Some major QTL for seed iron and zinc, seed phosphorus, and seed phytate in common bean, rice,J;md wheat have been mapped. An iron reductase QTL associated with seed-iron ~QTL is found in common bean where the genes coding for candidate enzymes involved in phytic acid synthesis have also been mapped. Candidate genes for Ipa co segregate with mutant phenotypes identified in rice and soybean. The Gpe-B1 locus in wild emmer wheat accelerates senescence and increases nutrient remobilization from leaves to developing seeds, and another gene named TtNAM-B1 affecting these traits has been cloned. Seed iron-dense common bean and rice in Latin America; seed iron-dense common bean in eastern and southern Africa;....

Antioxidant activity of anthocyanin in common legume grains

Legume grains are a popular food consumed all over the world and are widely known for their contribution to protein intake in human diet. Several varieties of legumes are also believed to have health benefit properties due to the anthocyanin content, which could act as an antioxidant. Among many, black soybean, common bean, cowpea, peanut, and lentils are the most deeply explored legumes related to the bioactive compound contents and antioxidant activities. Anthocyanin contents are higher in legumes that have a dark color such as black and red. Both in vitro and in vivo research are in agreement that legumes have high antioxidant activity, especially in the seed coat. Meanwhile, even though thermal processing is reported to decrease the anthocyanin content and antioxidant activity, the results are not significant. Therefore, legumes have the potential to be developed as functional food ingredients due to high content of bioactive compounds and the ability to act as antioxidants