The Emerging Oilseed Crop Sesamum indicum Enters the “Omics” Era

Abstract

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is one of the oldest oilseed crops widely grown in Africa and Asia for its high-quality nutritional seeds. It is well adapted to harsh environments and constitutes an alternative cash crop for smallholders in developing countries. Despite its economic and nutritional importance, sesame is considered as an orphan crop because it has received very little attention from science. As a consequence, it lags behind the other major oil crops as far as genetic improvement is concerned. In recent years, the scenario has considerably changed with the decoding of the sesame nuclear genome leading to the development of various genomic resources including molecular markers, comprehensive genetic maps, high-quality transcriptome assemblies, web-based functional databases and diverse daft genome sequences. The availability of these tools in association with the discovery of candidate genes and quantitative trait locis for key agronomic traits including high oil content and quality, waterlogging and drought tolerance, disease resistance, cytoplasmic male sterility, high yield, pave the way to the development of some new strategies for sesame genetic improvement. As a result, sesame has graduated from an “orphan crop” to a “genomic resource-rich crop.” With the limited research teams working on sesame worldwide, more synergic efforts are needed to integrate these resources in sesame breeding for productivity upsurge, ensuring food security and improved livelihood in developing countries. This review retraces the evolution of sesame research by highlighting the recent advances in the “Omics” area and also critically discusses the future prospects for a further genetic improvement and a better expansion of this crop.

Enhancing sesame production in West Africa’s Sahel: a comprehensive insight into the cultivation of this untapped crop in Senegal and Mali

“…Beyond the traditional use of direct consumption, sesame seeds have diverse applications [8]. The potentially beneficial effects of sesame on human health, because of the presence of natural antioxidants such as sesamin, sesamol and sesamolin, have recently prompted renewed interest in this ancient crop [9,10]. While the production of many crops has declined over the last decade in West Africa's Sahel, the traded quantity of sesame has more than doubled in this area, showing growing interest in the crop [11].…”

“…Some other factors, including plant height, length of capsules and axis height of the first capsule, were found to be strongly associated with sesame' grain yield [29,30]. Some candidate genes, QTLs and associated molecular markers for yield-related traits, have been described previously and could contribute to efficiently improve the West African sesame seed yield through molecular breeding [1,10,31,32].…”

“…For instance, sesame's short cycle time is important for avoiding pest attacks, soil moisture depletion and weathering on the open capsules, hence enabling farmers to harvest as soon as possible without incurring significant yield penalty [33,34]. Moreover, improving drought tolerance and thermotolerance in sesame genotypes should be one of the major objectives of sesame breeding programs mainly in drought-prone areas like West Africa's Sahel [10,[35][36][37]. Sesame biotic constraints have been widely neglected in this area, but observations show that, with the increasing of the crop acreage, diseases and pest attacks are becoming very serious.…”

Comprehensive Screening of Some West and Central African Sesame Genotypes for Drought Resistance Probing by Agromorphological, Physiological, Biochemical and Seed Quality Traits

“…Our results suggested that drought resistant genotypes maintain better the seed quality under drought stress compared with the sensitive genotypes. Sesame is essentially grown for its high-quality seed [49]. Hence, sesame genotypes with high ability to provide a good seed quality under stress, are highly desirable.…”

“…Roots have long been proposed as a major avenue of research to improve crop adaptation to water limitations [55]. However, the diversity of root morphology and architecture in sesame has not been examined until now [49]. Therefore, future research may aim at characterizing the diversity of sesame root morphology and architecture as performed in several crops such as pearl millet [56], maize [57], rice [58] and wheat [59].…”