Genetic Improvement of Minor Crop Legumes: Prospects of De Novo Domestication

Abstract

Minor crop species and their wild relatives are resilient to multiple environmental stressors and are a great potential resource for promoting global food and nutritional security. However, since many of these species are deficient in a few or several desirable domestication traits which reduce their agronomic value, further work on their trait improvement is required in order to fully exploit their food benefits. Thus, to some extent, a minor crop may be regarded as semi-domesticated species based on the extent to which it is deficient in a number of agronomically significant domestication traits. Quite recently, research has revealed prospects of creating new crops out of wild plant species via de novo domestication. Minor crops deficient in desirable domestication traits as well as their wild relatives can possibly be subjected to such a systematic process of redomestication and de novo domestication in order to increase their food, nutritional, or raw material utilization value. This review discusses the feasibility of employing CRISPR/Cas-mediated genome editing techniques for the genetic enhancement of minor legumes and de novo domestication of their wild relatives.

Recalcitrance to transformation, a hindrance for genome editing of legumes

“…The availability of deeper information on the whole genome sequences and functional characterization of various genes in many legumes, including soybean, pigeon pea, chickpea, groundnut, common bean, mung bean, and cowpea ( Shunmugam et al, 2018 ; Varshney et al, 2018 ) has opened vistas for crop improvement via genome editing ( Kingsley et al, 2022 ). Examples of genome-edited legume crops are limited, and these include soybean ( Sun et al, 2015 ; Lu and Tian, 2022 ), Lotus japonicus ( Wang et al, 2017 ), Medicago truncatula ( Meng et al, 2017 ; Jaudal et al, 2022 ), cowpea ( Ji et al, 2019 ; Bridgeland et al, 2023 ), peanut ( Yuan et al, 2019 ), and chickpea ( Badhan et al, 2021 ; Gupta et al, 2023 ).…”

Генетичні Ресурси Рослин – Важливе Підґрунтя Для Селекції Нових Сортів

“…Ряд науковців [9][10][11][12] стверджують, що окремі дикі види сої володіють генами, які забезпечують стійкість до комах, що висмоктують сік, до кореневої гнилі Phytophthora [13], борошнистої роси [14], , іржі [15], гнилі стебла Sclerotinia та синдрому раптової гибелі [16].…”