Breeding for Quality Improvement in Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.): a Review

Abstract

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is an economically important spice and medicinal plant for production of curcuminoids, oleoresin, essential oil which are used in pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Presence of these contents in turmeric determine its quality. Average productivity and quality of turmeric is not satisfactory because of the poor genetic materials and non-availability of quality materials. Conventional clonal selection takes long time and slow progress to achieve the same level of quality improvement than molecular or biotechnological approaches. Use of molecular markers, transcriptome sequencing, real time PCR approaches can be applied as a supplement to conventional methods of breeding through clonal selection and advancing elite genotypes. In this paper, we will discuss in short about the use of different approaches developed for quality improvement in turmeric.Keywords: Clonal selection; Curcuminoids; Molecular approach; Quality; Turmeric IntroductionTurmeric (Curcuma longa L.) (2n=3x=63) belonging to the family Zingiberaceae is an economically important spice and medicinal plant for production of curcumin, oleoresin, essential oil which are used in pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Traditionally turmeric is known as Haldi in India, Besar in Nepal and is under extensive cultivation in South Asian countries for medicinal, religious, culinary purposes and also as a cosmetic and dye. Dry recovery (curing percentage), curcumin and oleoresin contents determine the quality of turmeric and high variability has been observed in turmeric germplasm with respect to these characters [1]. Turmeric powder obtained from rhizomes of C. longa is extensively used as a spice, food preservative, natural dye in food industry and in cosmetics and drugs [2]. Curcuminoid, a phenylpropanoid derivative, is a mixture of curcumin (50-60 % of the curcuminoids), demethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin which imparts yellow colour to turmeric [3]. The medicinal properties of curcuminoids as anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, antimutagenic, anti-diabetic, anti-bacterial, hepatoprotective and expectorant are reported extensively. It is also well known in treating conditions ranging from arthritis and inflammation to Alzheimer's disease and cancer [2]. Because of widespread multipurpose use of this medicinal herb in pharmacological industry, spice industry and other culinary purpose use, quality improvement for enhanced phyto-constituents production in turmeric is of great importance in the present context. Need for Crop Improvement in TurmericAlthough India is a leading producer of turmeric and few high yielding cultivars are available in this crop, the average productivity and quality are not satisfactory. Major problems are non-availability of requisite high yielding genotype, slow multiplication rate, low curcumin and essential oil content in available cultivars and loss due to disease during cultivation and storage. Crop improvement work in turmeric is so far confined mostly to clonal selection by exploiting...

Effects of Variety and Curing and Drying Methods on Quality Attributes of Turmeric (Curcuma domestica) Powder

“…Generally, the lowest curcumin contents were obtained from HT3/2002 variety regardless of the drying and curing method used. This discrepancy in curcumin retention between turmeric varieties with similar postharvest operations may be due to genetic factors indicating that phytochemicals are attributes of biosynthetic gene expression pathways [28]. Several studies have already reported the presence of variations in curcumin content among different turmeric varieties.…”

Testing the Genetic Variability of Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) Genotypes through Simple Sequence Repeats Genomic-Based Microsatellite Markers

“…11,15 In addition, DNA markers have provided a competent device to facilitate the preservation and managing of plant genetic resources. 16,17 Importantly, the polymorphic information content (PIC) value has been extensively used as a discriminatory power tool and has highly succeeded in accumulating the accurate knowledge of turmeric genetic variability over the last few years in many diversity studies such as refs 4, 11, 18, and 19. With this background, the present study particularly aimed to determine the genetic variation/variability among certain turmeric genotypes using SSR DNA-based molecular markers to identify elite genotypes as well as effective SSR markers for further utilization in genetic development programs of turmeric germplasm for high-yielding cultivars with desirable traits.…”

“…More recently, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based marker systems have become available with the development of molecular markers and their many perceived advantages; it is crucial that these techniques are applied to assess genetic diversity in genotype collections to supplement and refine the morphologically based classification. DNA-based molecular markers, viz., intersimple sequence repeats, simple sequence repeats (SSRs), and random amplified polymorphic DNA are commonly used for molecular studies in turmeric to explore the genetic diversity of different collections of turmeric germplasm for further utilization in various breeding schemes including classical as well as marker-assisted selection to develop better and desirable turmeric genotypes/cultivars. , In this regard, grouping of turmeric genotypes based on geographic onset by polymorphic SSR markers would be very useful for genetic research studies. , In addition, DNA markers have provided a competent device to facilitate the preservation and managing of plant genetic resources. , Importantly, the polymorphic information content (PIC) value has been extensively used as a discriminatory power tool and has highly succeeded in accumulating the accurate knowledge of turmeric genetic variability over the last few years in many diversity studies such as refs , , , and .…”