Strategic enhancement of genetic gain for nutraceutical development inbuckwheat: A genomics-driven perspective

Abstract

Buckwheat (Fagopyrumspp.) under the family Polygonaceae is an ancient pseudocereal with stupendous but lessstudied nutraceutical properties. The gluten free nature of protein, balanced amino acid profile and healthpromoting bioactiveflavonoids make it a golden crop of future. Besides a scanty basic research, not muchattention has been paid to the improvement of plant type and breeding of nutraceutical traits. Scanning ofscientific literature indicates that adequate genetic variation exists for agronomic and nutritional traits inmainstream and wild gene pool of buckwheat. However, the currently employed conventional approaches to-gether with poorly understood genetic mechanisms restrict effective utilization of the existing genetic variationin nutraceutical breeding of buckwheat. The latest trends in buckwheat genomics, particularly avalilabity ofdraft genome sequences for both the cultivated species (F. esculentumandF.tataricum) hold immense potential toovercome these limitations. Utilizing the transgenic hairy rot cultures, role of various transcription factors andgene families have been deduced in production and biosynthesis of bioactiveflavonoids. Further, the acquisitionof high-density genomics data coupled with the next-generation phenotyping will certainly improve our un-derstanding of underlying genetic regulation of nutraceutical traits. The present paper highlights the applicationof multilayered omics interventions for tailoring a nutrient rich buckwheat cultivar and nutraceutical productdevelopment.