Does Plant Breeding for Antioxidant-Rich Foods Have an Impact on Human Health?

Abstract

Given the general beneficial effects of antioxidants-rich foods on human health and disease prevention, there is a continuous interest in plant secondary metabolites conferring attractive colors to fruits and grains and responsible, together with others, for nutraceutical properties. Cereals and Solanaceae are important components of the human diet, thus, they are the main targets for functional food development by exploitation of genetic resources and metabolic engineering. In this review, we focus on the impact of antioxidants-rich cereal and Solanaceae derived foods on human health by analyzing natural biodiversity and biotechnological strategies aiming at increasing the antioxidant level of grains and fruits, the impact of agronomic practices and food processing on antioxidant properties combined with a focus on the current state of pre-clinical and clinical studies. Despite the strong evidence in in vitro and animal studies supporting the beneficial effects of antioxidants-rich diets in preventing diseases, clinical studies are still not sufficient to prove the impact of antioxidant rich cereal and Solanaceae derived foods on human

Marker-Trait Associations for Total Carotenoid Content and Individual Carotenoids in Durum Wheat Identified by Genome-Wide Association Analysis

“…The success in breeding has been possible because the genetic component is predominant over environmental. The high heritability reported in durum wheat [ 17 ], along with the importance of the YPC in breeding, has promoted the development of many genetic studies for the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) or marker-trait associations (MTAs) related to the YPC and/or YI in semolina (reviewed by [ 3 ]).…”

Engineering Nutritionally Improved Edible Plant Oils

“…Manipulating the expression of genes associated with the carotenoid metabolic pathway could either enhance the total carotenoid level or adjust the composition of different compounds. This has been achieved in cereals and several crops in the Solanaceae (Bassolino et al 2022). Engineering of β-carotene in non-or low-carotene-producing crops is demonstrated to generate Golden Rice by expressing phytoene synthase and lycopene β-cyclase in the endosperm of rice grain (Ye et al 2000).…”

Flavonoids bridging the gut and the brain: Intestinal metabolic fate, and direct or indirect effects of natural supporters against neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration

“…Anthocyanins (ACNs) are a class of flavonoids which confer red, purple, violet and blue pigmentation in certain varieties of cereals, and leafy and root vegetables (e.g. eggplant, red cabbage, black beans, red onions, purple carrots), but they are mostly abundant in fruits and berries [39][40][41]. ACNs can be classified into six types: pelargonidin, cyanidin, delphinidin, peonidin, petunidin, and malvidin, which can be glycosylated and acylated, giving rise to more than 600 different types of ACNs [42,43].…”