Advances in Understanding and Harnessing the Molecular Regulatory Mechanisms of Vegetable Quality

Abstract

The quality of vegetables is facing new demands in terms of diversity and nutritional health. Given the improvements in living standards and the quality of consumed products, consumers are looking for vegetable products that maintain their nutrition, taste, and visual qualities. These requirements are directing scientists to focus on vegetable quality in breeding research. Thus, in recent years, research on vegetable quality has been widely carried out, and many applications have been developed via gene manipulation. In general, vegetable quality traits can be divided into three parts. First, commodity quality, which is most related to the commerciality of plants, refers to the appearance of the product. The second is flavor quality, which usually represents the texture and flavor of vegetables. Third, nutritional quality mainly refers to the contents of nutrients and health ingredients such as soluble solids (sugar), vitamin C, and minerals needed by humans. With biotechnological development, researchers can use gene manipulation technologies, such as molecular markers, transgenes and gene editing to improve the quality of vegetables. This review attempts to summarize recent studies on major vegetable crops species, with Brassicaceae, Solanaceae, and Cucurbitaceae as examples, to analyze the present situation of vegetable quality with the development of modern agriculture.

Effects of Jasmonic Acid on Stress Response and Quality Formation in Vegetable Crops and Their Underlying Molecular Mechanisms

“…With the improvement in living standards, people have higher requirements regarding the quality of vegetables. As an important component of the daily diet, vegetables are rich in nutrients such as sugars, pigments, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber, which are crucial for human health [ 1 ]. Vegetables with comprehensive and balanced nutrition to meet the various functional needs of the body and maintain normal life activities are more popular.…”

The COPII subunit CsSEC23 mediates fruit glossiness in cucumber

“…The annual production of cucumber exceeds 75.59 million tons in China, accounting for 80.93% of the total global cucumber production (Yang et al., 2023; Zhai et al., 2022). Peel glossiness is an important commodity property of cucumber, as highly glossy cucumbers are more popular with consumers (Gao et al., 2022). Plants with high gloss exhibit favorable qualities, such as firmness, salt tolerance, and drought resistance (Kim et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020; Natarajan et al., 2020; Wang, Liu, et al., 2015).…”

Low Plant Density Improves Fruit Quality without Affecting Yield of Cucumber in Different Cultivation Periods in Greenhouse

“…With the rapid development of the economy and living standards greatly improving, more and more people are considering fruit quality rather than cucumber yield [4][5][6].…”