Regulation and Manipulation of Nutrient-Controlling Genes in Crops

As society develops, healthy diet is becoming more and more important for humans. Improper diet is highly correlated with several common diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. The staple of a healthy diet comes from crops such as cereals, i.e. wheat, rice, and corn, oily crops, i.e. rapeseed, soybean, and peanut, and others, i.e. potato. Therefore, concerns for crop quality including the chemical components among crop foods are essential considerations for a healthy diet. For example, the ratio between amylose and amylopectin in rice, the ratio between saturated and unsaturated fatty acids and in particular the percentage of oleic acid. Another concern is the presence, or absence, of some nutritional components which are essential or beneficial for human health, for example, some amino acids such as lysine in the rice and tocopherol in the oils. Both of the above require proper genetic control and regulation, and also concerns the interaction between those genes.

This Research Topic focusses on the genetic control of important nutrients in crops, the identification of important QTLs combining large effective modern genetic tools such as GWAS analysis, multiple omics analysis on nutrients, gene controlling nutrients function assays, and manipulation of genes such as gene transferring and genome editing. The aim of the Research Topic is to identify key genes and understand the genetic control of nutrients, to provide healthy foods for humans.