Genetic and genomic interventions in crop biofortification: Examples in millets

Kudapa, H and Barmukh, R and Vemuri, H and Gorthy, S and Pinnamaneni, R and Vetriventhan, M and Srivastava, R K and Joshi, P and Habyarimana, E and Gupta, S K and Govindaraj, M (2023) Genetic and genomic interventions in crop biofortification: Examples in millets. Frontiers in Plant Science (TSI), 14. pp. 1-15. ISSN 1664-462X

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Abstract

Micronutrient malnutrition is a serious threat to the developing world’s human population, which largely relies on a cereal-based diet that lacks diversity and micronutrients. Besides major cereals, millets represent the key sources of energy, protein, vitamins, and minerals for people residing in the dryland tropics and drought-prone areas of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Millets serve as multi-purpose crops with several salient traits including tolerance to abiotic stresses, adaptation to diverse agro-ecologies, higher productivity in nutrient-poor soils, and rich nutritional characteristics. Considering the potential of millets in empowering smallholder farmers, adapting to changing climate, and transforming agrifood systems, the year 2023 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Millets. In this review, we highlight recent genetic and genomic innovations that can be explored to enhance grain micronutrient density in millets. We summarize the advances made in high-throughput phenotyping to accurately measure grain micronutrient content in cereals. We shed light on genetic diversity in millet germplasm collections existing globally that can be exploited for developing nutrient-dense and high-yielding varieties to address food and nutritional security. Furthermore, we describe the progress made in the fields of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and phenomics with an emphasis on enhancing the grain nutritional content for designing competitive biofortified varieties for the future. Considering the close genetic-relatedness within cereals, upcoming research should focus on identifying the genetic and genomic basis of nutritional traits in millets and introgressing them into major cereals through integrated omics approaches. Recent breakthroughs in the genome editing toolbox would be crucial for mainstreaming biofortification in millets.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Center of Excellence in Genomics and Systems Biology Genebank Global Research Program - Accelerated Crop Improvement
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	micronutrients, genetic resources, genomics-assisted breeding, omics, precision phenotyping, genome editing
Subjects:	Mandate crops > Millets Others > Genetics and Genomics Others > Gene Bank
Depositing User:	Mr Nagaraju T
Date Deposited:	19 Jan 2024 11:25
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2024 11:25
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/12385
Official URL:	https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls....
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	HK acknowledges the Science and Engineering Research Board (Grant ID no. CRG/2019/005966), Department of Science and Technology (SERB-DST), Government of India, New Delhi, India, for the support.
Links:	Google Scholar

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